  The He I 5876A absorption line recently discovered in the spectrum of the
companion to the millisecond pulsar PSR J1740-5340 is tentatively attributed to
electron impact excitations due to the irradiation of its atmosphere by
gamma-rays emitted by the pulsar's magnetosphere. Numerical calculations,
similar to those carried out previously for Type Ib SNe, indicate that a pulsar
beam with photon energies ~ 1 MeV gives rise to a 5876A line of the observed
strength if the beam's spin-down conversion efficiency approaches 1%. However,
a significant difficulty for the proposed mechanism is the strength of the
singlet line at 6678A. Compared to the corresponding triplets, singlet lines
are weak because of the loss of excitation when photons emitted in decays to
the ground state ionize hydrogen atoms, an effect absent in the hydrogen-free
atmospheres of Type Ib SNe.

Astrophysics