Filamentation Instability of Interacting Current Sheets in Striped Relativistic Winds: The Origin of Low Sigma?

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mechanism involving filamentation instability in current sheets of striped relativistic winds, which leads to magnetic field dissipation and heating, impacting pulsar emission observations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel filamentation instability mechanism in striped winds that explains magnetic dissipation and heating before the termination shock.

Findings

Current sheets interact via a Weibel-like instability.

Magnetic field diffusive annihilation occurs upstream.

Heating influences observable pulsar emissions.

Abstract

I outline a mechanism, akin to Weibel instabilities of interpenetrating beams, in which the neighboring current sheets in a striped wind from an oblique rotator interact through a two stream-like mechanism (a Weibel instability in flatland), to create an anomalous resistivity that heats the sheets and causes the magnetic field to diffusively annihilate in the wind upstream of the termination shock. The heating has consequences for observable unpulsed emission from pulsars.