Pulsar radiation belts and transient radio emission

Abstract

It is proposed that radiation belts similar to the ones in the planetary magnetosphere can exist for a pulsar with a relatively long period and a strong magnetic field. In the belts located in the closed field line region near the light cylinder relativistic pairs are trapped and maintained at a density substantially higher than the local Goldreich-Julian corotation density. The trapped plasma can be supplied and replenished by either direct injection of relativistic pairs from acceleration of externally-supplied particles in a dormant outer gap or in situ ionization of the accreted neutral material in the trapping region. The radiation belts can be disrupted by waves that are excited in the region as the result of plasma instabilities or emitted from the surface due to starquakes or stellar oscillations. The disruption can cause an intermittent particle precipitation toward the star producing radio bursts. It is suggested that such bursts may be seen as rotating radio transients (RRATs).

11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (6)

• A Debris Disk Around An Isolated Young Neutron Star
• Is pulsar B0656+14 a very nearby RRAT source?
• Polarized radio emission from the magnetar XTE J1810-197
• A tale of two populations: Rotating Radio Transients and X-ray Dim Isolated Neutron Stars
• The bright spiky emission of pulsar B0656+14
• The induced turbulence effect on propagation of radio emission in pulsar magnetospheres

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Discovery of Pulsations and a Possible Spectral Feature in the X-ray Emission from Rotating Radio Transient J1819-1458
• Timing Solution and Single-pulse Properties for Eight Rotating Radio Transients
• Mapping the magnetosphere of PSR B1055-52
• Timing observations of RRAT J1819-1458 at Urumqi Observatory
• MeerTRAP: Twelve Galactic fast transients detected in a real-time, commensal MeerKAT survey
• High Energy Emission from Rotation-Powered Pulsars: Outer-gap vs. Slot-gap Models
• Pulse energy distribution for RRAT J0139+33 according to observations at the frequency 111 MHz
• Detection of two new RRATs at 111 MHz
• Investigation of four rotating radio transients properties at 111 MHz
• Strong pulses detected from a rotating radio transient J1819$-$1458
• A Statistical Analysis of Crab Pulsar Giant Pulse Rates
• XMM-Newton observations of PSR J0554+3107: pulsing thermal emission from a cooling high-mass neutron star
• Transient Radio Neutron Stars
• A study of 10 Rotating Radio Transients using Parkes radio telescope