Particle acceleration and radio emission above pulsar polar caps

Abstract

An improved model is proposed for polar cap current flow, electron-positron production, and subsequent growth of a two-stream bunching instability. The major differences from previous models derive from a more detailed analysis of charge outflow from neutron star polar caps, which indicates that at the polar caps, both ion and electron-positron pairs must be considered in describing the potential drops associated with current flow, the strength of the resulting electron-positron discharge, and the subsequent interaction of the ion beam and the relativistic pair plasma.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1086/157661

Citations and references