Affiliation:
1. Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics, Academy of Athens , Athens 11527 , Greece
2. Department of Physics, University of Patras , Patras, Rio 26504 , Greece
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The pulsar magnetosphere is divided into a corotating region of closed field lines surrounded by open field lines that emanate from the two poles of the star, extend to infinity, and are separated by an equatorial current sheet. The three regions meet at a magnetospheric Y-point. In steady-state solutions of the ideal force-free magnetosphere, the Y-point may lie at any distance inside the light cylinder. Time-dependent force-free simulations, however, develop closed-line regions that extend all the way to the light cylinder. On the other hand, Particle-in-Cell (PIC) solutions consistently develop smaller closed-line regions. In order to understand this effect, we solve the pulsar equation with an improved numerical method. We show that the total electromagnetic energy stored in the ideal force-free magnetosphere manifests a subtle minimum when the closed-line region extends to only 90 per cent of the light cylinder, and thus argue that the system will spontaneously choose this particular configuration. Furthermore, we argue that the intersection of the corotating region with the equatorial current sheet is at right angles, literally leading to a T-point.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Space and Planetary Science,Astronomy and Astrophysics
Cited by
2 articles.
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1. The pulsar magnetosphere with machine learning: methodology;Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society;2024-01-17
2. Twisted magnetar magnetospheres;Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society;2023-11-15