We show that toroidal magnetic field annihilation in the equatorial current sheet of the pulsar magnetosphere is related to how fast poloidal magnetic field lines close as we move away from the light cylinder. This determines the reconnection radial electric field which directly accelerates particles in the neutral layer inside the equatorial current sheet. The efficiency of poloidal magnetic field closure near the light cylinder may be measurable through the pulsar braking index. We argue that, the lower the efficiency of pair formation, the higher the braking index. We also argue that synchrotron radiation reaction in the neutral layer does not inhibit the accelerated particles from reaching the maximum energy of about 10^16 eV available in the open pulsar magnetosphere.
Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in violent energy conversion occurring in the environments of high electrical conductivity, such as the solar atmosphere, magnetosphere, and fusion devices. We focus on the morphological features of the process in two different environments, the solar atmosphere and the geomagnetic tail. In addition to indirect evidence that indicates reconnection in progress or having just taken place, such as auroral manifestations in the magnetosphere and the flare loop system in the solar atmosphere, more direct evidence of reconnection in the solar and terrestria…
I review the theoretical understanding of the global structure of pulsar magnetospheres concentrating on recent progress in force-free electrodynamics and first-principles simulations of magnetospheres.
It is shown that induced Raman scattering of electromagnetic waves in the strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma of pulsar magnetosphere may be important for wave propagation and as an effective saturation mechanism for electromagnetic instabilities. The frequencies, at which strong Raman scattering occurs in the outer parts of magnetosphere, fall into the observed radio band. The typical threshold intensities for the strong Raman scattering are of the order of the observed intensities, implying that pulsar magnetosphere may be optically thick to Raman scattering of electromagnetic waves…
A mechanism of generation of a toroidal component of large scale magnetic field, leading to the reconstruction of the pulsar magnetospheres is presented. In order to understand twisting of magnetic field lines, we investigate kinematics of a plasma stream rotating in the pulsar magnetosphere. Studying an exact set of equations describing the behavior of relativistic plasma flows, the increment of the curvature drift instability is derived, and estimated for $1s$ pulsars. It is shown that a new parametric mechanism is very efficient and can explain rotation energy pumping in the pulsar magnetos…
Dissipative axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere is calculated by a direct numerical simulation of the Strong-Field Electrodynamics equations. The magnetic separatrix disappears, it is replaced by a region of enhanced dissipation. With a better numerical scheme, one should be able to calculate the bolometric lightcurves for a given conductivity.
We discuss plausible locations of radiating regions in the magnetospheres of pulsars and argue that the mechanisms of pulsar radiation at different frequencies are closely connected with the locations of the radiating regions, especially in the radio range. If the region that is responsible for the bulk of the non-thermal radiation at some frequency is localized in the pulsar magnetosphere then the nature of this radiation will be either determined or, at least, restricted significantly.
We discuss axisymmetric force-free pulsar magnetospheres with magnetically collimated jets and a disk-wind obtained by numerical solution of the pulsar equation. This solution represents an alternative to the quasi-spherical wind solutions where a major part of the current flow is in a current sheet which is unstable to magnetic field annihilation.
In the proton counterflow model of a pulsar magnetosphere that we have recently proposed, non-relativistic protons are supplied from the magnetosphere to flow toward the pulsar surface and screen an electric field above the polar cap region. In this Letter, we show that the proton counterflow is also suitable for the bunching of pair plasma. The two-stream instability is easily excited and can produce bunches of pairs with a relevant length scale to emit coherent curvature radiation.
Creation of electron-positron pairs near the pulsar surface and the parameters of plasma in pulsar magnetospheres are discussed. It is argued that the pair creation process is nonstationary, and the pair plasma that flows out from the pulsar environment is strongly nonhomogeneous and gathers into separate clouds. Plasma instabilities in the outflowing plasma are reviewed. The two-stream instability that develops due to strong nonhomogeneity of the outflowing plasma is the most plausible reason for the generation of coherent radio emission of pulsars. The development of the two-stream instabili…
The global structure of the current flows in pulsar magnetospheres is investigated, with rough calculations of the elements in the magnetospheric circuit. It is emphasized that the potential of critical field lines is the same as that of interstellar medium, and that the pulsars whose rotation axes and magnetic dipole axes are parallel should be positively charged, in order to close the pulsar's current flows. The statistical relation between the radio luminosity and pulsar's electric charge (or the spindown power) may hint that the millisecond pulsars could be low-mass bare strange stars.
We demonstrate that nonlinear decay of obliquely propagating Langmuir waves into Langmuir and Alfven waves (L --> L'+A) is possible in a one-dimensional, highly relativistic, streaming, pair plasma. Such a plasma may be in the magnetospheres of pulsars. It is shown that the characteristic frequency of generated Alfven waves is much less than the frequency of Langmuir waves and may be consistent with the observational data on the radio emission of pulsars.
Polar magnetospheric gaps consume a fraction of the electric potential that develops accross open field lines. This effect modifies significantly the structure of the axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere. We present numerical stead-state solutions for various values of the gap potential. We show that a charge starved magnetosphere contains significantly less electric current than one with freely available electric charges. As a result, electromagnetic neutron star braking becomes inefficient. We argue that the magnetosphere may spontaneously rearrange itself to a lower energy configuration throug…
The present work is our first attempt to understand the role of reconnection in the pulsar magnetosphere. Our discussion is based on the observationaly infered fact that, as the pulsar spins down, the region of closed corotating dipolar field lines grows with time. This implies that reconnection must take place in the magnetosphere. We argue that non-dissipative reconnection along the equatorial current sheet allows for the continuous channeling of pulsar spindown energy into particle energy, all the way from the light cylinder to the pulsar wind termination shock, and we propose that this eff…
We formulate variation principle for force-free magnetosphere of an inclined pulsar: ${\cal E} +{\bf Ω}\cdot {\bf M}$ ($\cal E$, ${\bf M}$ are electromagnetic energy and angular momentum, ${\bf Ω}$ is the angular velocity of a star) is stationary under isotopological variations of magnetic field and arbitrary variations of electric field. The variation principle gives the reason for existence and proves local stability of current singular layers along magnetic separatrices. Magnetic field lines of inclined pulsar magnetosphere lie on magnetic surfaces, and do have magnetic separatrices. In the…
The energy source of a pulsar's non-thermal emission is the rotational energy loss of the neutron star. The rotational energy of the neutron star is transformed into the pulsar radiation by a long sequence of processes. The processes of this sequence are discussed.
Positive and negative pulsar breaking indices suggest that some fraction of the pulsar spindown torque undergoes a cyclic evolution. The observed strong correlation of `anomalous' breaking indices with pulsar age implies that the characteristic periodicity timescale is in the range 100 to 10,000 years depending on the fraction of the spindown torque that undergoes cyclic evolution, 1 to 100% respectively. We argue that the longest variability timescale is consistent with a neutron star magnetic cycle similar to the solar cycle.
An investigation of the kinematics of a rotating relativistic plasma stream in the perpendicular rotator model of the pulsar magnetosphere is presented. It is assumed that the plasma (ejected from the pulsar) moves along the pulsar magnetic field lines and also corotates with them. The field lines are considered to be radial straight lines, located in the plane which is perpendicular to the pulsar rotation axis. The necessity of taking particle inertia into account is discussed. It is argued that the "massless" ("force-free") approximation cannot be used for the description of this problem. Th…
The behaviour of a relativistic electron-positron plasma in the pulsar magnetosphere is investigated. The equation of the motion of the magnetospheric plasma is discussed, from which it follows that, if the plasma particle radial velocity ${V_r}>{c/{\sqrt 2}}$ (where c is the speed of light), the centrifugal acceleration changes its sign and the particle braking begins. The stability of the magnetospheric plasma with respect to the radially oriented potential perturbations is discussed and the possibility of the electrostatic field generation in this plasma along the pulsar magnetic field line…
The non-dissipative relativistic force-free condition should be a good approximation to describe the electromagnetic field in much of the pulsar magnetosphere, but we may plausibly expect it to break down in singular domains. Self-consistent magnetospheric solutions are found with field lines closing both at and within the light-cylinder. In general, the detailed properties of the solutions may be affected critically by the physics determining the appropriate choice of equatorial boundary condition beyond the light-cylinder.
Refraction of wave propagation in a corotating pulsar magnetospheric plasma is considered as a possible interpretation for observed asymmetric pulse profiles with multiple components. The pulsar radio emission produced inside the magnetosphere propagates outward through the rotating magnetosphere, subject to refraction by the intervening plasma that is spatially inhomogeneous. Both effects of a relativistic distribution of the plasma and rotation on wave propagation are considered. It is shown that refraction coupled with rotation can produce asymmetric conal structures of the profile. The dif…
Magnetospheres of many astrophysical objects can be accurately described by the low-inertia (or "force-free") limit of MHD. We present a new numerical method for solution of equations of force-free relativistic MHD based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach with a prescription for handling spontaneous formation of current sheets. We use this method to study the time-dependent evolution of pulsar magnetospheres in both aligned and oblique magnetic geometries. For the aligned rotator we confirm the general properties of the time-independent solution of Contopoulos et al. (1999). …
We consider the force-free magnetosphere of an aligned rotator. Its structure is well described by a Grad-Shafranov equation for poloidal magnetic field, the so-called "pulsar equation". We solve this equation by a multigrid method with high numerical resolution. On the fine numerical grid current layer along the last closed field line could be accurately incorporated into the numerical procedure and all physical properties of the solution such as Goldreich-Julian charge density, drift velocity, energy losses etc. could be accurately calculated. Here we report results of the simulations. Among…
Propagation of radio waves in the ultrarelativistic magnetized electron-positron plasma of pulsar magnetosphere is considered. Polarization state of the original natural waves is found to vary markedly on account of the wave mode coupling and cyclotron absorption. The change is most pronounced when the regions of mode coupling and cyclotron resonance approximately coincide. In cases when the wave mode coupling occurs above and below the resonance region, the resultant polarization appears essentially distinct. The main result of the paper is that in the former case the polarization modes becom…
Soon after the discovery of radio pulsars in 1967, the pulsars are identified as strongly magnetic (typically $10^{12}$G) rapidly rotating ($\sim 10^{2}-0.1$ Hz) neutron stars. However, the mechanism of particle acceleration in the pulsar magnetosphere has been a longstanding problem. The central problem is why the rotation power manifests itself in both gamma-ray beams and a highly relativistic wind of electron-positron plasmas, which excites surrounding nebulae observed in X-ray. Here we show with a three dimensional particle simulation for the global axisymmetric magnetosphere that a steady…
The effect of photon-beam-induced turbulence on propagation of radio emission in a pulsar magnetosphere is discussed. Beamed radio emission with a high brightness temperature can generate low-frequency plasma waves in the pulsar magnetosphere and these waves scatter the radio beam. We consider this effect on propagation of radio emission both in the open field line region and in the closed field line region. The former is applicable to most cases of pulsar radio emission where the propagation is confined to the polar region; it is shown that the induced process is not effective for radio emiss…
We study the wave propagation modes in the relativistic streaming pair plasma of the magnetospheres of pulsars and magnetars, focusing on the effect of vacuum polarization. We show that the combined plasma and vacuum polarization effects give rise to a vacuum resonance, where ``avoided mode crossing'' occurs between the extraordinary mode and the (superluminous) ordinary mode. When a photon propagates from the vacuum-polarization-dominated region at small radii to the plasma-dominated region at large radii, its polarization state may undergo significant change across the vacuum resonance. We m…
We apply a theory of wave propagation through a turbulent medium to the scattering of radio waves in pulsar magnetospheres. We find that under conditions of strong density modulation the effects of magnetospheric scintillations in diffractive and refractive regimes may be observable. The most distinctive feature of the magnetospheric scintillations is their independence on frequency. Results based on diffractive scattering due to small scale inhomogeneities give a scattering angle that may be as large as 0.1 radians, and a typical decorrelation time of $10^{-8}$ seconds. Refractive scattering …
This paper deals with the Crab Nebula problem to suggest that particle acceleration takes place not only at the inner shock but also over a larger region in the nebula with disordered magnetic field. Kennel and Cornoniti (1984) constructed a spherically symmetric model of the Crab Nebula and concluded that the pulsar wind which excites the nebular is kinetic-energy dominant (KED) because the nebula flow induced by KED wind is favorable to explain the nebula spectrum and expansion speed. This is true even with new Chandra observation, which provides newly the spatially resolved spectra. We have…
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 est…
A time-dependent model for pair creation in a pulsar magnetosphere is developed. It is argued that the parallel electric field that develops in a charge-starved region (a gap) of a pulsar magnetosphere oscillates with large amplitude. Electrons and positrons are accelerated periodically and the amplitude of the oscillations is assumed large enough to cause creation of upgoing and downgoing pairs at different phases of the oscillation. With a charge-starved initial condition, we find that the oscillations result in bursts of pair creation in which the pair density rises exponentially with time.…
We consider the classical picture of three dimensional motion of charged particles in pulsar magnetosphere. We adopt a perturbative method to solve the equation of motion, and find the trajectory of particles as they move along the rotating dipolar magnetic field lines. Our aim is to study the influence of rotation on the pulsar radio emission by considering the constrained motion of particles along the open dipolar magnetic field lines. We find that the rotation induces a significant curvature into the particle trajectories. Our model predicts the intensity on leading side dominates over that…
We present a comprehensive investigation of the radio polarization properties within the theory of natural electromagnetic wave modes in pulsar magnetospheres. Taking into account the curvature of the field lines, aberration effects and magnetic sweep-back we use the relativistic dielectric tensor in the low-density cold plasma approximation and derive the following polarization characteristics, which are in full agreement with the observational findings. Specifically, we demonstrate that 1. The degree of linear polarization decreases with increasing frequency. 2. The degree of circular polari…
We present a modification of the relativistic phase shift method of determining the radio emission geometry from pulsar magnetospheres proposed by Gangadhara & Gupta (2001). Our modification provides a method of determining radio emission altitudes which does not depend on the viewing geometry and does not require polarization measurements. We suggest application of the method to the outer edges of averaged radio pulse profiles to identify magnetic field lines associated with the edges of the pulse and, thereby, to test the geometric method based on the measurement of the pulse width at the lo…
We present a relativistic model of pulsar radio emission by plasma accelerated along the rotating magnetic field lines projected on to a 2D plane perpendicular to the rotation axis. We have derived the expression for the trajectory of a particle, and estimated the spectrum of radio emission by the plasma bunches. We used the parameters given in the paper by Peyman and Gangadhara (2002). Further the analytical expressions for the Stokes parameters are obtained, and compared their values with the observed profiles. The one sense of circular polarization, observed in many pulsars, can be explaine…
We investigate the self-consistent electrodynamic structure of a particle accelerator in the Crab pulsar magnetosphere on the two-dimensional poloidal plane, solving the Poisson equation for the electrostatic potential together with the Boltzmann equations for electrons, positrons and gamma-rays. If the trans-field thickness of the gap is thin, the created current density becomes sub-Goldreich-Julian, giving the traditional outer-gap solution but with negligible gamma-ray luminosity. As the thickness increases, the created current increases to become super-Goldreich-Julian, giving a new gap so…
A self-consistent electrodynamics of a particle accelerator in a rotating neutron-star magnetosphere is investigated on the two-dimensional poloidal plane. Solving the Poisson equation for the electrostatic potential together with the Boltzmann equations for electrons, positrons and gamma-rays, it is demonstrated that the created current density increases to be super-Goldreich-Julian if the trans-field thickness of the gap becomes thick enough. This new solution exists from the neutron-star surface to the outer magnetosphere with a small-amplitude positive acceleration field in the inner part,…
We have explored the magnetosphere described by a numerical solution for an axisymmetric rotating field satisfying the force-free and ideal MHD conditions everywhere. The electric current distribution is determined by the requirement of continuity and smoothness of the flux function across the light cylinder. The overall magnetic field structure is obtained using the numerical result. We also checked the drift velocity of a charged particle, which is caused by the resultant electric and magnetic fields. It is found that the velocity exceeds the light speed beyond a few times the size of the li…
We present, for the first time, the structure of the axisymmetric force-free magnetosphere of an aligned rotating magnetic dipole, in the case in which there exists a sufficiently large charge density (whose origin we do not question) to satisfy the ideal MHD condition, ${\bf E\cdot B}=0$, everywhere. The unique distribution of electric current along the open magnetic field lines which is required for the solution to be continuous and smooth is obtained numerically. With the geometry of the field lines thus determined we compute the dynamics of the associated MHD wind. The main result is that …
We develop a model for gamma-ray emission from the outer magnetosphere of pulsars (the outer-gap model). The charge depletion causes a large electric field which accelerates electrons and positrons. We solve the electric field with radiation and pair creation processes self-consistently, and calculate curvature spectrum and Inverse-Compton (IC) spectrum. We apply this theory to PSR B0833-45 (Vela) and B1706-44 for which their surface magnetic fields, observed thermal X-rays are similar to each other. We find that each observed cut-off energies of the gamma-rays are well explained. By inclusion…
We investigate the axisymmetric magnetosphere of an aligned rotating magnetic dipole surrounded by an ideal force-free plasma. We concentrate on the magnetic field structure around the point of intersection of the separatrix between the open and closed field-line regions and the equatorial plane. We first study the case where this intersection point is located at the Light Cylinder. We find that in this case the separatrix equilibrium condition implies that all the poloidal current must return to the pulsar in the open-field region, i.e., that there should be no finite current carried by the s…
Although the unified formula for gamma-ray absorption process involving both the magnetic field and a perpendicular electric field derived by Daugherty & Lerche (1975) is correct, we argued in this paper that their conclusion that the induced electric fields are important in the pair formation process in the pulsar magnetospheres is wrong and misleading. The key point is that usually the direction of a gamma photon at the emission point observed in the laboratory frame should be (v/c, 0, [1-(v/c)^2]^{1/2}) rather than (0, 0, 1), where v is the co-rotating velocity. This emission direction is j…
Pulsar radio emission is modelled as a sum of two completely polarized non-orthogonal modes with the randomly varying Stokes parameters and intensity ratio. The modes are the result of polarization evolution of the original natural waves in the hot magnetized weakly inhomogeneous plasma of pulsar magnetosphere. In the course of wave mode coupling, the linearly polarized natural waves acquire purely orthogonal elliptical polarizations. Further on, as the waves pass through the cyclotron resonance, they become non-orthogonal. The pulse-to-pulse fluctuations of the final polarization characterist…
We consider a model of axisymmetric neutron star magnetosphere. In our approach, the current density in the region of open field lines is constant and the returning current flows in a narrow layer along the separatrix. In this case, the stream equation describing the magnetic field structure is linear both in the open and closed regions, the main problem lying in matching the solutions along the separatrix (Okamoto 1974; Lyubarskii 1990). We demonstrate that it is the stability condition on the separatrix that allows us to obtain a unique solution of the problem. In particular, the zero point …
A synthesis of the present knowledge on gamma-ray emission from the magnetosphere of a rapidly rotating neutron star is presented, focusing on the electrodynamics of particle accelerators. The combined curvature, synchrotron, and inverse-Compton emission from ultra-relativistic positrons and electrons, which are created by two-photon and/or one-photon pair creation processes, or emitted from the neutron-star surface, provide us with essential information on the properties of the accelerator -- electric potential drop along the magnetic field lines. A new accelerator model, which is a mixture o…
We investigate a pair creation cascade in the magnetosphere of a rapidly rotating neutron star. We solve the set of the Poisson equation for the electro-static potential and the Boltzmann equations for electrons, positrons, and gamma-ray photons simultaneously. In this paper, we first examine the time-dependent nature of particle accelerators by solving the non-stationary Boltzmann equations on the two-dimensional poloidal plane in which both the rotational and magnetic axes reside. Evaluating the temperature of the heated polar cap surface, which is located near the magnetic pole, by the bomb…
We investigate particle accelerators in rotating neutron-star magnetospheres, by simultaneously solving the Poisson equation for the electrostatic potential together with the Boltzmann equations for electrons, positrons and photons on the poloidal plane. Applying the scheme to the three pulsars, Crab, Vela and PSR B1951+32, we demonstrate that the observed phase-averaged spectra are basically reproduced from infrared to very high energies. It is found that the Vela's spectrum in 10-50 GeV is sensitive to the three-dimensional magnetic field configuration near the light cylinder; thus, a carefu…
The available data of single X-ray pulsars, their wind nebulae, and the SNRs which are connected to some of these sources are analysed. It is shown that electric field intensity of neutron stars tears off charged particles from the surface of neutron star and triggers the acceleration of particles. The charged particles are accelerated mainly in the field of magnetodipole radiation wave. Power and energy spectra of the charged particles depend on the strength of the magnetodipole radiation. Therefore, the X-ray radiation is strongly dependent on the rate of rotational energy loss and weakly de…
The Petrova (2000) model to calculate pulse profiles is extended to a variable emission height model to make it physically self-consistent. In this context variable means that the emission height is no longer considered to be the same for different magnetic field lines. The pulse profiles calculated using this new model seem to be less realistic due to a focusing effect and cannot be used to fit (typical) multifrequency pulsar observations. Apart from the focusing effect the general morphology of pulse profiles is not greatly affected by introducing a variable emission height. Additional exten…
We investigate in details properties of stationary force-free magnetosphere of aligned rotator assuming the last closed field line lying in equatorial plane at large distances from pulsar. The pulsar equations is solved numerically using multigrid code with high numerical resolution, physical properties of the magnetosphere are obtained with high accuracy. We found a set of solutions with different sizes of the closed magnetic field line zone and verify the applicability of the force-free approximation. We discuss the role of electron-positron cascades in supporting of the force-free magnetosp…
We present numerical simulations of the electron-positron plasma creation process in a simple neutron star magnetosphere. We have developed a set of cascade `kernels', which represent the endpoint of the pair cascades resulting from monoenergetic photon seeds. We explore two popular models by convolving these kernels with the seed photon distributions produced by curvature radiation and by inverse Compton scattering. We find that the pair plasma in either case is well-described in its rest frame by a relativistic Maxwellian distribution with temperature near mc^2/k_B. We present cascade multip…
For polar-cap models based on electromagnetic cascades induced by curvature radiation of beam particles we calculate broad-band high-energy spe ctra of pulsed emission expected for classical ($\sim 10^{12}\G$) and millisecond pulsars ($\sim 10^9\G$). The spectra are a superposition of curvature and synchrotron radiation components and most of their detailed features depend significantly on the magnetic field strength. The relations of expected pulsed luminosity \Lx (between 0.1 keV and 10 keV) as well as \Lg (above 100 keV) to the spin-down luminosity \edot are presented. We conclude that spec…
A number of disparate observational and theoretical pieces of evidence indicate that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, neutron stars' closed field lines are populated by dense, hot plasma and may be responsible for producing some radio and high energy emission. This conclusion is based on eclipse modeling of the binary pulsar system PSR J0737-3039A/B (Lyutikov & Thompson 2005), a quantitative theory of Crab giant pulses (Lyutikov 2007) and a number of theoretical works related to production of non-thermal spectra in magnetars through resonant scattering. In magnetars, dense pair plasma is …
We have made polarimetric monitoring observations of millisecond pulsars visible from the northern hemisphere at 1410 MHz. Their emission properties are compared with those of normal pulsars. Although we demonstrated in paper I that millisecond pulsars exhibit the same flux density spectra and similar profile complexity, our results presented here suggest that millisecond pulsar profiles do not comply with the predictions of classification schemes based on ``normal'' pulsars. The frequency development of a large number of millisecond pulsar profiles is abnormal when compared with the developme…
We present the numerical simulations of coherent inverse Compton scattering (CICS) in a highly magnetized plasma process by means of a full three dimensional particle in cell code (PIC), which is mass and energy conservative. We used the parameters of a pulsar magnetosphere where CICS is one of the most promising models for the generation of the observed highly coherent radio emission. First we show details of the onset and time evolution of strong Langmuir turbulence driven by a relativistic electron beam penetrating a strongly magnetized background plasma. The Langmuir turbulence acts as sel…
Diffractive and refractive magnetospheric scintillations may allow a direct testing of the plasma inside the light cylinder. Unusual electrodynamics of the strongly magnetized electron-positron plasma allow separation of the magnetospheric and interstellar scattering. The most distinctive feature of the magnetospheric scintillations is their independence on frequency. Diffractive scattering due to small scale inhomogeneities produce a scattering angle that may be as large as 0.1 radians, and a typical decorrelation time of $10^{-8}$ seconds. Refractive scattering due to large scale inhomogenei…
In this paper we review some aspects of the theory of magnetic threaded disks. We discuss in particular the equations that determine the position of the inner disk boundary by using different prescriptions for the neutron star-accretion disk interaction. We apply the results to several accretion powered X-ray pulsars that showed both quasi-periodic oscillations in their X-ray flux and spin-up/spin-down torque reversals. Under the hypothesis that the beat-frequency model is applicable to the quasi-periodic oscillations, we show that these sources provide an excellent opportunity to test models …
The purpose of this paper is to suggest how detailed single-pulse observations of ``slow'' radio pulsars may be utilized to construct an empirical model for their emission. It links the observational synthesis developed in a series of papers by Rankin starting in the 1980s to the more recent empirical feedback model of Wright (2003a) by regarding the entire pulsar magnetosphere as a non-steady, non-linear interactive system with a natural built-in delay. It is argued that the enhanced role of the outer gap in such a system indicates an evolutionary link to younger pulsars, in which this region…
It is suggested in this paper that the `bare' strange star might be not bare, and there could be a magnetosphere around it. As a strange star might be an intensely magnetized rotator, the induced unipolar electric field would be large enough to construct a magnetosphere around the strange matter core. This kind of magnetosphere is very similar to that of the rotating magnetized neutron stars discussed by many authors. A magnetosphere will be established very soon through pair production by gamma-B or two photon processes after a strange star was born in a supernova explosion. It is emphasized …
Averaged pulse profiles of three nearby pulsars: B1929+10, J0437-4715 and B0950+08 exhibit unusual `double notches'. These W-like looking features consist of two adjacent V-shaped dips that approach each other at increasing observation frequency nuobs roughly at a rate sep \propto nuobs^{-1/2}, where sep is the separation between the notches' minima. We show that basic properties of the notches, namely their W-like look and the rate of their converging can be understood within a narrow class of models of coherent radio emission from pulsars: the free electron maser models based on coherent inv…
We show that FFE (Force-Free Electrodynamics) describes pulsar magnetospheres -- even when radiation and particle wind power are comparable to the spin-down power. At the same time, we show that FFE is insufficient for calculating pulsar magnetospheres. This is because FFE admits a large family of stationary solutions with different currents flowing in the closed line region. To choose the actual solution one needs a model of current generation which goes beyond pure FFE. We calculate several FFE magnetospheres for the aligned rotator. The Poynting power of these solutions fills the range $c^{…
