Theory of pulsar magnetosphere and wind

Abstract

Neutron stars are fascinating astrophysical objects immersed in strong gravitational and electromagnetic fields, at the edge of our current theories. These stars manifest themselves mostly as pulsars, emitting a timely very stable and regular electromagnetic signal. Even though discovered almost fifty years ago, they still remain mysterious compact stellar objects. In this review, we summarize the most fundamental theoretical aspects of neutron star magnetospheres and winds. The main competing models susceptible to explain their radiative properties like multi-wavelength pulse shapes and spectra and the underlying physical processes such as pair creation and radiation mechanisms are scrutinized. A global but still rather qualitative picture emerges slowly thanks to recent advances in numerical simulations on the largest scales. However considerations about pulsar magnetospheres remain speculative. For instance the exact composition of the magnetospheric plasma is not yet known. Is it solely filled with a mixture of $e^{\pm }$~leptons, or does it contain a non negligible fraction of protons and/or ions? Actually, is it almost entirely filled or mostly empty except for some small anecdotal plasma filled regions? Answers to these questions will strongly direct the description of the magnetosphere to seemingly contradictory results leading sometimes to inconsistencies. Nevertheless, account are given to the latest developments in the theory of pulsar magnetospheres and winds, the existence of a possible electrosphere and physical insight obtained from related observational signatures of multi-wavelength pulsed emission.

Accepted for publication in the Journal of Plasma Physics

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Cited by in corpus (33)

• Electrodynamics of pulsar magnetospheres
• Superfluidity and Superconductivity in Neutron Stars
• Dissipation of the striped pulsar wind
• Meterwavelength Single-pulse Polarimetric Emission Survey III: The Phenomenon of Nulling in Pulsars
• The Nature of Coherent Radio Emission from Pulsars
• Magnetic Axis Drift and Magnetic Spot Formation in Neutron Stars with Toroidal Fields
• Axion-Photon Conversion in 3D Media and Astrophysical Plasmas
• Shadows of rotating black holes in plasma environments with aberration effects
• Toward understanding the physical underpinnings of spatial and spectral morphologies of pulsar wind nebulae
• Evolution of Spin Period and Magnetic Field of the Crab Pulsar: Decay of the Braking Index by the Particle Wind Flow Torque
• Analytical expressions for pulse profile of neutron stars in plasma environments
• Periodic activity from fast radio burst FRB180916 explained in the frameof the orbiting asteroid model
• Chiral anomalous processes in magnetospheres of pulsars and black holes
• Constraining the magnetic field geometry of the millisecond pulsar PSR~J0030+0451 from joint radio, thermal X-ray and $\gamma$-ray emission
• Radiative pulsar magnetospheres: oblique rotators
• Synthetic pulsar lightcurves from global kinetic simulations and comparison with the Fermi-LAT catalog
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• Radiative pulsar magnetospheres: aligned rotator
• Prospects for Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Science with eXTP
• Relativistic MHD modeling of magnetized neutron stars, pulsar winds, and their nebulae
• Detecting and characterizing pulsar haloes with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Enhanced particle acceleration in a pulsar wind interacting with a companion
• Impact of temperature asymmetry and small fraction of static positive ions on the relaxed states of a relativistic hot pair plasma
• Localisation of the non-thermal X-ray emission of PSR~J2229+6114 from its multi-wavelength pulse profiles
• The photon time delay in magnetized vacuum magnetosphere
• Superdense beaming of axion dark matter in the vicinity of the light cylinder of pulsars
• General relativistic calculation of magnetic field and Power loss for a misaligned pulsar
• Geometrical envelopes of fast radio bursts
• Model of pulsar pair cascades in non uniform electric fields: growth rate, density profile and screening time
• Synchrotron cutoff in Ultraluminous X-ray sources
• Axion-Photon Conversion Signals from Neutron Stars with Spacetime Curvature Accounted for in the Magnetosphere Model
• Nonlinear electrodynamics in magnetars: systematic effects on radius constraints and timing analysis
• Multi-wavelength emission in resistive pulsar magnetospheres