The Equatorial Current Sheet and other interesting features of the Pulsar Magnetosphere

Abstract

We want to understand what drives magnetospheric dissipation in the equatorial current sheet. Numerical simulations have limitations and, unless we have a clear a priori understanding of the physical processes involved, their results can be misleading. We argue that the canonical pulsar magnetosphere is strongly dissipative and that a large fraction (up to 30-40% in an aligned rotator) of the spindown luminosity is redirected towards the equator where it is dissipated into particle acceleration and emission of radiation. We show that this is due to the failure of the equatorial electric current to cross the Y-point at the tip of the corotating zone.

13 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Journal of Plasma Physics

References in corpus (11)

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Theory of pulsar magnetosphere and wind
• Coherent emission in pulsars, magnetars and Fast Radio Bursts: reconnection-driven free electron laser
• Conservation laws and evolution schemes in geodesic, hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic flows
• Are there two types of pulsars?
• Hybrid Numerical Simulations of Pulsar Magnetospheres
• Diffusivity in force-free simulations of global magnetospheres
• A model of an ion-proton radio pulsar polar cap
• A ring-of-fire in the pulsar magnetosphere
• Physics of radio emission in the long-period pulsars
• Complex emission patterns: fluctuations and bistability of polar-cap potentials