Collimation and Dissipation of Pulsar Winds

Abstract

AbstractA nearly stationary pulsar wind is shown to be always collimating along the direction of rotation. It follows that the conventional picture of the equatorial pulsar wind can occur only in a highly time-dependent manner, which, if true, may account for the observed time variation within a single pulse. Furthermore, a mechanism, via excitation of magnetosolitons, is proposed for explaining the continuous generation of energetic electrons, which yield the observed radio emission in the Type II supernova remnants. Fully relativistic analyses will be presented to substantiate these claims.