Curvature-drift instability fails to generate pulsar radio emission

TL;DR

This paper critically evaluates the curvature drift instability as a mechanism for pulsar radio emission, demonstrating that it cannot produce the high brightness temperatures observed due to insufficient wave amplification.

Contribution

The study provides an explicit solution showing the limited amplification of waves, challenging the viability of curvature drift instability for pulsar radio emission.

Findings

Wave amplification factor remains close to unity.

Curvature drift instability cannot generate high brightness temperature emission.

Mechanism is ineffective for pulsar radio emission.

Abstract

The curvature drift instability has long been considered as a viable mechanism for pulsar radio emission. We reconsidered this mechanism by finding an explicit solution describing propagation of short-wave electro-magnetic waves in a plasma flow along curved magnetic field lines. We show that even though the waves could be amplified, the amplification factor remains very close to unity therefore this mechanism is unable to generate high brightness temperature emission from initial weak fluctuations.