Particle-in-cell simulations of pulsar magnetospheres: transition between electrosphere and force-free regimes

Abstract

Global particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of pulsar magnetospheres are performed with a volume, surface and pair production-based plasma injection schemes to systematically investigate the transition between electrosphere and force-free pulsar magnetospheric regimes. A new extension of the PIC code OSIRIS to model pulsar magnetospheres using a two-dimensional axisymmetric spherical grid is presented. The sub-algorithms of the code and thorough benchmarks are presented in detail, including a new first-order current deposition scheme that conserves charge to machine precision. It is shown that all plasma injection schemes produce a range of magnetospheric regimes. Active solutions can be obtained with surface and volume injection schemes when using artificially large plasma injection rates, and with pair production-based plasma injection for sufficiently large separation between kinematic and pair production energy scales.