Pair-Starved Pulsar Magnetospheres

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytic model for the magnetic and electric field structure of pair-starved pulsar magnetospheres, focusing on regions where plasma density is insufficient to fully screen electric fields, within the light cylinder.

Contribution

It presents a self-consistent solution to Maxwell's equations for the inner magnetosphere of a pulsar in the pair-starved regime, extending understanding of electric fields and magnetic structures in such conditions.

Findings

Provides a theoretical framework for pair-starved pulsar magnetospheres

Derives self-consistent magnetic and electric field solutions

Highlights regions with unscreened electric fields within the light cylinder

Abstract

We propose a simple analytic model for the innermost (within the light cylinder of canonical radius) structure of open-magnetic-field lines of a rotating neutron star (NS) with relativistic outflow of charged particles (electrons/positrons) and arbitrary angle between the NS spin and magnetic axes. We present the self-consistent solution of Maxwell's equations for the magnetic field and electric current in the pair-starved regime where the density of electron-positron plasma generated above the pulsar polar cap is not sufficient to completely screen the accelerating electric field and thus establish the E \cdot B = 0 condition above the pair-formation front up to very high altitudes within the light cylinder. The proposed model may provide a theoretical framework for developing a refined model of the global pair-starved pulsar magnetosphere.