Pair-Starved Pulsar Magnetospheres
arXiv:0810.2971 · doi:10.1088/0004-637X/692/1/140
Abstract
We propose a simple analytic model for the innermost (within the light cylinder of canonical radius) structure of open-magnetic-field lines of a rotating neutron star (NS) with relativistic outflow of charged particles (electrons/positrons) and arbitrary angle between the NS spin and magnetic axes. We present the self-consistent solution of Maxwell's equations for the magnetic field and electric current in the pair-starved regime where the density of electron-positron plasma generated above the pulsar polar cap is not sufficient to completely screen the accelerating electric field and thus establish the E \cdot B = 0 condition above the pair-formation front up to very high altitudes within the light cylinder. The proposed model may provide a theoretical framework for developing a refined model of the global pair-starved pulsar magnetosphere.
23 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
References in corpus (2)
Cited by in corpus (10)
- Constraining Pulsar Magnetosphere Geometry with Gamma-Ray Light Curves
- Probing millisecond pulsar emission geometry using light curves from the Fermi Large Area Telescope
- Discovery of two millisecond pulsars in Fermi sources with the Nancay Radio Telescope
- 3FGL Demographics Outside the Galactic Plane using Supervised Machine Learning: Pulsar and Dark Matter Subhalo Interpretations
- The influence of nondipolar magnetic field and neutron star precession on braking indexes of radiopulsars
- A Particle Simulation for the Pulsar Magnetosphere: Relationship of Polar Cap, Slot Gap, and Outer Gap
- A doublet of cosmic-ray events with primary energies >10^20 eV
- Linear-drifting sub-pulse sources in radio pulsars
- Emission Patterns and Light Curves of Gamma-Rays in the Pulsar Magnetosphere with a Current-Induced Magnetic Field
- The 3D pulsar magnetosphere with machine learning: first results