Related papers: Pulsar Sparking: What if mountains on the surface?
The sizes of pulsar radio pulses in the plane of the sky are determined. This is important not only in relation to the possibility of directly resolving the radio pulses spatially, but also for verifying and placing constraints on existing…
Almost 40 years after the discovery of pulsars -- and despite a plethora of secured data on them -- pulsar theory is still beset by a number of fundamental inconsistencies. In this short contribution, I will argue that (i) magnetars do not…
Pulsar magnetospheres admit non-stationary vacuum gaps that are characterized by non-vanishing ${\bf{E}} \cdot {\bf{B}}$. The vacuum gaps play an important role in plasma production and electromagnetic wave emission. We show that these gaps…
We have observed a total of 67 pulsars at five frequencies ranging from 243 to 3100 MHz. Observations at the lower frequencies were made at the Giant Metre Wave Telescope in India and those at higher frequencies at the Parkes Telescope in…
I survey recent successes in the application of relativistic MHD and force-free electrodynamics to the modeling of the pulsars' rotational energy loss mechanism as well as to the structure and emission characteristics of Pulsar Wind…
We discuss the formation of dark compact objects in a dark matter environment in view of the possible mass dependence of pulsars on the distribution of dark matter in the Galaxy. Our results indicate that the pulsar masses should decrease…
The properties of X-ray radiation from the polar caps predicted by the radio pulsar models depend on the surface chemical composition, magnetic field and star's mass and radius as well as on the cap temperature, size and position. Fitting…
Motivated by recent results on the location of the radio emission in pulsar magnetospheres, we have developed a model which can account for the large diversity found in the average profile shapes of pulsars. At the centre of our model lies…
A recent X-ray observation has shown that the radio pulsar PSR B0943+10, with clear drifting subpulses, has a much smaller polar cap area than that of conventional pulsars with mass of $\sim\msun$ and radius of $\sim10$ km. Zhang et al.…
Pulsed emission from gamma-ray pulsars originates inside the magnetosphere, from radiation by charged particles accelerated near the magnetic poles or in the outer gaps. In polar cap models, the high energy spectrum is cut off by magnetic…
Electric currents j flow along the open magnetic field lines from the polar caps of neutron stars. Activity of a polar cap depends on the ratio \alpha=j/c\rho_GJ, where \rho_GJ is the corotation charge density. The customary assumption…
Observations of pulsar glitches may provide insights on the internal physics of neutron stars and recent studies show how it is in principle possible to constrain pulsar masses with timing observations. The reliability of these estimates…
We suggest that some observational features of high-energy radiation from pulsars should be explained in terms of three dimensional geometric models, e.g. the phase-resolved X-ray and $\gamma$-ray spectra and the energy dependent light…
PSR B0943+10 is known to show remarkably stable drifting subpulses, which can be interpreted in terms of a circumferential motion of 20 sparks, each completing one circulation around the periphery of the polar cap in 37 pulsar periods. We…
Dwarf galaxies and globular clusters may contain intermediate mass black holes ($10^{3}$ to $10^{5}$ solar masses) in their cores. Estimates of ~$10^{3}$ neutron stars in the central parsec of the Galaxy and similar numbers in small…
The study of pulsars in the three and a half decades since their discovery has highlighted a handful of issues critical to their understanding. To date there is no consensus on the physical mechanism for their radio radio emission, despite…
Coherent radio emission in pulsars is excited due to instabilities in a relativistically streaming non-stationary plasma flow, which is generated from sparking discharges in the inner acceleration region (IAR) near the stellar surface. A…
Pulsars are highly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars. The magnetic field can reach the critical magnetic field from which quantum effects of the vacuum becomes relevant, giving rise to magnetooptic properties of vacuum…
For sufficiently strong magnetic fields and/or low temperatures, the neutron star surface may be in a condensed state with little gas or plasma above it. Such surface condensation can significantly affect the thermal emission from isolated…
The absence of radio pulsars with long periods has lead to the popular notion of a high P ``death line.'' In the standard picture, beyond this boundary, pulsars with low spin rates cannot accelerate particles above the stellar surface to…