The magnetron instability in a pulsar's cylindrical electrosphere

Abstract

(abridged) The physics of the pulsar magnetosphere remains poorly constrained by observations. Little is known about their emission mechanism. Large vacuum gaps probably exist, and a non-neutral plasma partially fills the neutron star surroundings to form an electrosphere. We showed that the differentially rotating equatorial disk in the pulsar's electrosphere is diocotron unstable and that it tends to stabilise when relativistic effects are included. However, when approaching the light cylinder, particle inertia becomes significant and the electric drift approximation is violated. In this paper, we study the most general instability, i.e. by including particle inertia effects, as well as relativistic motions. This general non-neutral plasma instability is called the magnetron instability. We linearise the coupled relativistic cold-fluid and Maxwell equations. The non-linear eigenvalue problem for the perturbed azimuthal electric field component is solved numerically. The spectrum of the magnetron instability in a non-neutral plasma column confined between two cylindrically conducting walls is computed for several cylindrical configurations. For a pulsar electrosphere, no outer wall exists. In this case, we allow for electromagnetic wave emission propagating to infinity. When the self-field induced by the plasma becomes significant, it can first increase the growth rate of the magnetron instability. However, equilibrium solutions are only possible when the self-electric field, measured by the parameter $s_{\rm e}$ and tending to disrupt the plasma configuration, is bounded to an upper limit, $s_{\rm e,max}$. For $s_{\rm e}$ close to but smaller than this value $s_{\rm e,max}$, the instability becomes weaker or can be suppressed as was the case in the diocotron regime.