Related papers: Pair-production multiplicities in rotation-powered…
Recent advances in numerical algorithms and computational power have enabled first-principles simulations of pulsar magnetospheres using Particle-in-Cell (PIC) techniques. These ab-initio simulations seem to indicate that pair creation…
We investigate the physical situation above the pulsar polar cap (PC) where the accelerating primaries (electrons) are not capable of producing sufficient numbers of electron-positron pairs at low altitudes (within 1-2 stellar radii above…
Some massive binaries should contain energetic pulsars which inject relativistic leptons from their inner magnetospheres and/or pulsar wind regions. If the binary system is compact enough, then these leptons can initiate inverse Compton…
The problem of the backreaction during the process of electron-positron pair production by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave propagating in a plasma is investigated. A model based on the relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov equation with…
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…
Context: At the low accretion-rates typical for BL Lac-objects, magnetospheres of active galactic nuclei can develop vacuum gaps with strong electric fields accelerating charged seed particles parallel to the magnetic fields up to…
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…
For a subclass of polar-cap models based on electromagnetic cascades induced by curvature radiation (CR) we calculate broad-band high-energy spectra of pulsed emission expected for classical and millisecond pulsars. The spectra are a…
Neutral stellar core at or over nuclear densities is described by a positive charged baryon core and negative charged electron fluid since they possess different masses and interactions. Based on a simplified model of a gravitationally…
Cross-sections for Rutherford scattering, Coulomb bremsstrahlung and pair creation, have been calculated at very high magnetic fields in order to investigate the photo-production of protons at the polar caps of pulsars whose spin is…
We study the process of energy conversion from overcritical electric field into electron-positron-photon plasma. We solve numerically Vlasov-Boltzmann equations for pairs and photons assuming the system to be homogeneous and anisotropic.…
Magnetic fields inside and around neutron stars are at the heart of pulsar magnetospheric activity. Strong magnetic fields are responsible for quantum effects, an essential ingredient to produce leptonic pairs and the subsequent broadband…
In the present work one- and two-photon pair production in a subcritical magnetic field have been considered. Two-photon production has been studied in the resonant case, when the cross section considerably increases compared to the…
We consider the electron-positron plasma generation processes in the magnetospheres of magnetars - neutron stars with strong surface magnetic fields, B = 10^(14) - 10^(15) G. We show that the photon splitting in a magnetic field, which is…
Electron-positron pairs can be produced via the Schwinger mechanism in the presence of strong electric fields. In particular, the fields involved in $\alpha$ decay and nuclear fission are strong enough to produce them. The energy of the…
Pulsars, or more generally rotation powered neutron stars, are excellent factories of antimatter in the Galaxy, in the form of pairs of electrons and positrons. Electrons are initially extracted from the surface of the star by the intense…
The avalanche mechanism of plasma production in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is detailed, and constraints on system parameters needed for efficient electron-positron pair cascades are explored. Whether an AGN falls within this favorable…
In high-intensity (> 10^21W/cm^2) laser-matter interactions gamma-ray photon emission by the electrons can strongly affect the electron's dynamics and copious numbers of electron-positron pairs can be produced by the emitted photons. We…
We examine the phenomenon of electron-positron pair production from vacuum in a combination of two counterpropagating electromagnetic pulses having a duration of the order of the Compton time. We show that in this extreme short-time domain,…
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…