Related papers: The Equatorial Current Sheet and other interesting…
The equatorial current sheet in pulsar magnetospheres is often regarded as an ideal site for particle acceleration via relativistic reconnection. Using 2D spherical particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate particle acceleration in the…
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…
The pulsar magnetosphere is divided into a corotating region of closed field lines surrounded by open field lines that emanate from the two poles of the star, extend to infinity and are separated by an equatorial current sheet. The three…
Some of the most energetic pulsars exhibit rotation-modulated gamma-ray emission in the $0.1$ to $100$ GeV band. The luminosity of this emission is typically $0.1\text{-}10\%$ of the pulsar spin-down power (gamma-ray efficiency), implying…
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…
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…
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 argue that existing models of the ideal pulsar magnetosphere are incorrect because of the improper treatment of the singular current layer outside the light cylinder. We simulated the axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere in the Force-Free…
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…
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 perform 2.5D axisymmetric simulations of the pulsar magnetosphere (aligned dipole rotator) using the charge conservative, relativistic, electromagnetic particle in cell code PICsar. Particle in cell codes are a powerful tool to use for…
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…
Spacecraft data reveals a nonuniform ambipolar electric field transverse to the magnetic field in a thin magnetotail current sheet that leads to intense ExB velocity shear and non-gyrotropic particle distributions. The ExB drift far exceeds…
We conduct force-free simulations of a single neutron star undergoing orbital motion in flat spacetime, mimicking the trajectory of the star about the center of mass on a compact binary system. Our attention is focused on the kinetic energy…
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…
In order to investigate the importance of dissipation in the pulsar magnetosphere we decided to combine Force-Free with Aristotelian Electrodynamics. We obtain solutions that are ideal (non-dissipative) everywhere except in an equatorial…
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…
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…
Polarization is a powerful diagnostic tool to constrain the site of the high-energy pulsed emission and particle acceleration in gamma-ray pulsars. Recent particle-in-cell simulations of pulsar magnetosphere suggest that high-energy…
Abstract: Assuming that the numerical diffusivity triggered by violations of the force-free electrodynamics constraints is a proxy for the physical resistivity, we examine its impact on the overall dynamics of force-free aligned pulsar…