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Register a new userCurrent closure in the pulsar magnetosphere
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Ioannis Contopoulos
Publication date
2018
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
Ioannis Contopoulos
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Current closure in the pulsar magnetosphere holds the key to its structure. We must determine not only the global electric circuit, but also the source of its electric charge carriers. We address this issue with the minimum number of assumptions: a) The magnetosphere is everywhere ideal and force-free, except above the polar cap and in some finite part of the current sheet; and b) pairs are produced above the polar cap with multiplicity kappa. We show that a thin region of width delta ~ r_pc/2 kappa << r_pc along the rim of the polar cap provides all the charges that are needed in the equatorial and separatrix electric current sheet. These charges are transferred to the current sheet in a narrow dissipation zone just outside the magnetospheric Y-point. The maximum accelerating potential in this region is equal to the potential drop in the thin polar cap rim, which is approximately equal to 1/kappa times the potential drop from the center to the edge of the polar cap. The dissipated electromagnetic energy is approximately equal to 0.5/kappa times the total pulsar spindown energy loss. Our framework allows to calculate the high energy emission in terms of the pair multiplicity.
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We present the structure of the 3D ideal MHD pulsar magnetosphere to a radius ten times that of the light cylinder, a distance about an order of magnitude larger than any previous such numerical treatment. Its overall structure exhibits a stable, smooth, well-defined undulating current sheet which approaches the kinematic split monopole solution of Bogovalov 1999 only after a careful introduction of diffusivity even in the highest resolution simulations. It also exhibits an intriguing spiral region at the crossing of two zero charge surfaces on the current sheet, which shows a destabilizing behavior more prominent in higher resolution simulations. We discuss the possibility that this region is physically (and not numerically) unstable. Finally, we present the spiral pulsar antenna radiation pattern.
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Contopoulos 2019 proposed that a dissipation zone develops in the magnetosphere of young pulsars at the edge of the closed-line region beyond the light cylinder. This is necessary in order to supply the charge carriers that will establish current closure through the equatorial and separatrix current-sheets. In the present work, we propose to investigate in greater detail this region with a simplified model that we would like to call the `ring-of-fire. According to this simple model, the dissipation zone is a narrow reconnection layer where electrons and positrons are accelerated inwards and outwards respectively along Speiser orbits that are deflected in the azimuthal direction by the pulsar rotation. After they exit the reconnection layer, the accelerated positrons form the positively charged equatorial current-sheet, and the accelerated electrons form the negatively charged separatrix current-sheet along the boundary of the closed-line region. During their acceleration, particles lose only a small part of their energy to radiation. Most of their energy is lost outside the dissipation region, in the equatorial and separatrix current sheets. Our simple model allows us to obtain high-energy spectra and efficiencies. The radiation emitted by the positrons in the equatorial current-sheet forms a very-high energy tail that extends up to the TeV range.
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