Related papers: Coherent emission from QED cascades in pulsar pola…
The formation of $e^\pm$ plasmas within pulsar magnetospheres through quantum electrodynamics (QED) cascades in vacuum gaps is widely acknowledged. This paper aims to investigate the effect of photon polarization during the QED cascade…
Time-dependent cascades of electron-positron pairs are thought to be the main source of plasma in pulsar magnetospheres and a primary ingredient to explain the nature of pulsar radio emission, a longstanding open problem in high-energy…
Recent developments in the study of pulsar radio emission revealed that the microphysics of quantum electrodynamic (QED) pair cascades at pulsar polar caps may be responsible for generating the observed coherent radio waves. However,…
It was recently proposed that the electric field oscillation as a result of self-consistent $e^{\pm}$ pair production may be the source of coherent radio emission from pulsars. Direct Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of this process have…
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…
I argue that the problem of electromagnetically driven electron-positron cascades in magnetospheres of neutron stars must be addressed starting from first principles. I describe a general numerical algorithm for doing self-consistent…
Understanding the interplay of strong-field QED and collective plasma effects is important for explaining extreme astrophysical environments like magnetars. It has been shown that QED pair plasmas is possible to be produced and observed by…
Pair cascades in polar cap regions of neutron stars are considered to be an essential process in various models of coherent radio emissions of pulsars. The cascades produce pair plasma bunch discharges in quasi-periodic spark events. The…
We report on the first self-consistent multidimensional particle-in-cell numerical simulations of non-homogeneous pair discharges in polar caps of rotation-powered pulsars. By introducing strong inhomogeneities in the initial plasma…
The origin of pulsar radio emission is one of the old puzzles in theoretical astrophysics. In this Letter we present a global kinetic plasma simulation which shows from first-principles how and where radio emission can be produced in pulsar…
We study the efficiency of pair production in polar caps of young pulsars under a variety of conditions to estimate the maximum possible multiplicity of pair plasma in pulsar magnetospheres. We develop a semi-analytic model for calculation…
Coherent radio emission from pulsars originates from excited plasma waves in an ultra-relativistic and strongly magnetized electron-positron pair plasma streaming along the open magnetic field lines of the pulsar. Traditional coherent radio…
We study electron-positron pair production in polar caps of energetic pulsars to determine the maximum multiplicity of pair plasma a pulsar can produce under the most favorable conditions. This paper complements and updates our study of…
It is crucial to know the polarization properties of coherent radio waves that escape from pulsar polar caps to calculate the radiative transfer through the magnetosphere and to predict observable radio properties. We describe pair cascades…
We discuss the creation of electron-positron cascades in the context of pulsar polar cap acceleration models and derive several useful analytic and semi-analytic results for the spatial extent and energy response of the cascade. Instead of…
We present numerical simulations of electron-positron pair cascades in the magnetospheres of magnetic neutron stars for a wide range of surface fields (B_p = 10^{12}--10^{15} G), rotation periods (0.1--10 s), and field geometries. This has…
We report the observation of longitudinal filamentation of an electron-positron pair plasma in a beam-driven QED cascade. The filaments are created in the "pair-reflection" regime, where the generated pairs are partially stopped and…
Magnetars in quiescent states continue to emit hard X-rays with a power far exceeding the loss of rotational energy. It has recently been noted that this hard X-ray continuum may bear a direct signature of quantum electrodynamic (QED)…
Electron-positron pair cascades developed in the extreme electromagnetic fields of neutron star polar caps are considered a key source of magnetospheric plasma in these objects. We use a simplified model that maps the Quantum…
By taking the spin and polarization of the electrons, positrons and photons into account in the strong-field QED processes of nonlinear Compton emission and pair production, we find that the growth rate of QED cascades in ultra-intense…