Related papers: Reconnection in a striped pulsar wind
The spin-down power of a pulsar is thought to be carried away in an MHD wind in which, at least close to the star, the energy transport is dominated by Poynting flux. The pulsar drives a low-frequency wave in this wind, consisting of…
Most of the rotational luminosity of a pulsar is carried away by a relativistic magnetised wind in which the matter energy flux is negligible compared to the Poynting flux. Near the equatorial plane of an obliquely rotating pulsar…
By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the process of driven magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of relativistic striped flows. In pulsar winds and in magnetar-powered relativistic…
According to magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models, the rotational energy of a rapidly spinning neutron star is carried away by a relativistic wind and deposited at a large distance, in the nebula, downstream of the wind termination shock. The…
A rotating pulsar creates a surrounding pulsar wind nebula (PWN) by steadily releasing an energetic wind into the interior of the expanding shockwave of supernova remnant or interstellar medium. At the termination shock of a PWN, the…
The conversion of the Crab pulsar wind from one dominated by Poynting flux close to the star to one dominated by particle-born energy at the termination shock is considered. The idea put forward by Coroniti (1990) and criticised by…
The relativistic wind of obliquely-rotating pulsars consists of toroidal stripes of opposite magnetic field polarity, separated by current sheets of hot plasma. By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we…
The formation of a large-scale current sheet is a generic feature of pulsar magnetospheres. If the magnetic axis is misaligned with the star rotation axis, the current sheet is an oscillatory structure filling an equatorial wedge determined…
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…
Flows in which energy is transported predominantly as Poynting flux are thought to occur in pulsars, gamma-ray bursts and relativistic jets from compact objects. The fluctuating component of the magnetic field in such a flow can in…
Rapidly rotating neutron stars blow a relativistic, magnetized wind mainly composed of electron-positron pairs. The free expansion of the wind terminates far from the neutron star where a weakly magnetized pulsar wind nebula forms, implying…
The magnetosphere of a rotating pulsar naturally develops a current sheet beyond the light cylinder (LC). Magnetic reconnection in this current sheet inevitably dissipates a nontrivial fraction of the pulsar spin-down power within a few LC…
A solution to the sigma problem - that of finding a mechanism capable of converting Poynting energy flux to particle-borne energy flux in a pulsar wind - was proposed several years ago by Coroniti and Michel who considered a particular…
We can probe observationally and reproduce theoretically intricate properties of the Crab Nebula nearest to the pulsar - The Inner Knot. The tiny knot is indeed a bright spot on the surface of a quasi-stationary magnetic relativistic shock…
A pulsar wind is a relativistic outflow dominated by Poynting energy at its base. Based on the standard ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) with the ordered magnetic field, the observed slow expansion $v_{\rm…
Pulsar winds are the ideal environment for the study of non-linear electromagnetic waves. It is generally thought that a pulsar launches a striped wind, a magnetohydrodynamic entropy wave, where plasma sheets carried along with the flow…
The origin of radio emission from plerions is considered. Recent observations suggest that radio emitting electrons are presently accelerated rather than having been injected at early stages of the plerion evolution. The observed flat…
Using the formulation of relativistic reconnection by Lyutikov & Uzdensky (2002) we estimate the upper possible rates of reconnection in pulsar winds using Bohm prescription for resistivity. We find that the velocity of plasma inflow into…
The energy lost by a rotation-powered pulsar is carried by a relativistic flow containing a mixture of electromagnetic fields and particles. In the inner regions, this is thought to be a magnetically dominated, cold, electron-positron wind…
Since the launch of the Fermi telescope more than five years ago, many new gamma-ray pulsars have been discovered with intriguing properties challenging our current understanding of pulsar physics. Observation of the Crab pulsar furnish…