Related papers: Particle acceleration in axisymmetric pulsar curre…
We perform first-principles relativistic particle-in-cell simulations of aligned pulsar magnetosphere. We allow free escape of particles from the surface of a neutron star and continuously populate the magnetosphere with neutral pair plasma…
We present a global kinetic plasma simulation of an axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere with self-consistent $e^\pm$ pair production. We use the particle-in-cell method and log-spherical coordinates with a grid size $4096\times 4096$. This…
Relativistic current sheets have been proposed as the sites of dissipation in pulsar winds, jets in active galaxies and other Poynting-flux dominated flows. It is shown that the steady versions of these structures differ from their…
We perform global particle-in-cell simulations of pulsar magnetospheres including pair production, ion extraction from the surface, frame dragging corrections, and high energy photon emission and propagation. In the case of oblique…
Pulsars have been identified as good candidates for the acceleration of cosmic rays, up to ultra-high energies. However, a precise description of the acceleration processes at play is still to be established. Using 2D particle-in-cell…
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…
We review the recent advances in the pulsar high-energy $\gamma$-ray observation and the electrodynamics of the pulsar magnetospheres from the early vacuum model to the recent plasma-filled models by the numerical simulations. The numerical…
We investigate the centrifugal acceleration in an axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere under the ideal-MHD approximation. We solved the field-aligned equations of motion for flows inside the current sheet with finite thickness. We find that…
We present first-principles relativistic particle-in-cell simulations of the oblique pulsar magnetosphere with pair formation. The magnetosphere starts to form with particles extracted from the surface of the neutron star. These particles…
The main issue of the pulsar magnetosphere is how the rotation power is converted into both particle beams which causes pulsed emissions, and a highly relativistic wind of electron-positron plasmas which forms surrounding nebulae shining in…
We continue our investigation of particle acceleration in the pulsar equatorial current sheet (ECS) that began with Contopoulos (2019) and Contopoulos & Stefanou (2019). Our basic premise has been that the charge carriers in the current…
We present the first self-consistent global simulations of pulsar magnetospheres with operating $e^\pm$ discharge. We focus on the simple configuration of an aligned or anti-aligned rotator. The star is spun up from zero (vacuum) state to a…
Pulsars emit beams of radiation that reveal the extreme physics of neutron star magnetospheres. Yet, their understanding remains incomplete. Recent global Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations have raised several questions that led us to…
Current models of gamma-ray lightcurves in pulsars suffer from large uncertainties on the precise location of particle acceleration and radiation. Here, we present an attempt to alleviate these difficulties by solving for the…
I outline a new model of particle acceleration in the current sheet separating the closed from the open field lines in the force-free model of pulsar magnetospheres, based on reconnection at the light cylinder and "auroral" acceleration…
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…
In this paper, we discuss the results of a new particle pusher in realistic ultra-strong electromagnetic fields as those encountered around rotating neutron stars. After presenting results of this algorithm in simple fields and comparing…
In view of recent efforts to probe the physical conditions in the pulsar current sheet, we revisit the standard solution that describes the main elements of the ideal force-free pulsar magnetosphere. The simple physical requirement that the…
We examine if an efficient particle acceleration takes place by a magnetic-field-aligned electric field near the light cylinder in a rotating neutron star magnetosphere. Constructing the electric current density with the actual motion of…
We expand the off-resonant scattering theory for particle diffusion in magnetized current filaments that can be typically compared to astrophysical jets, including active galactic nucleus jets. In a high plasma beta region where the…