On the decay of gamma-quanta of curvature radiation near a pulsar surface

It is shown that when the magnetic field strength on the surface of a pulsar exceeds 0.2xBsub(cr) (Bsub(cr)=msup(2)csup(3)/eh/2π) considerable amount of curvature photons with the electric field vector orthogonal to the plane in which the external magnetic field B and the photon wave vector k lie, decay before reaching the threshold of pair creation. Polarization observations of the pulsar curvature γ-radiation may give in future a possibility to judge about the value of the magnetic field near the pulsar surface