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arXiv · 1403.7300

Does a strong particle accelerator arise very close to the light cylinder in a pulsar magnetosphere?

Kouichi Hirotani
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Abstract

We examine if an efficient particle acceleration takes place by a magnetic-field-aligned electric field near the light cylinder in a rotating neutron star magnetosphere. Constructing the electric current density with the actual motion of collision-less plasmas, we express the rotationally induced, Goldreich-Julian charge density as a function of position. It is demonstrated that the 'light cylinder gap', which emits very high energy photons via curvature process by virtue of a strong magnetic-field-aligned electric field very close to the light cylinder, will not arise in an actual pulsar magnetosphere.

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Kouichi Hirotani. 2014-03-28. Does a strong particle accelerator arise very close to the light cylinder in a pulsar magnetosphere?. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slu042

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