On the polar cap cascade pair multiplicity of young pulsars

TL;DR

This paper models pair production in young pulsars' polar caps, estimating a maximum pair plasma multiplicity of around a few hundred thousand, which challenges previous assumptions in pulsar wind theories.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytic model combined with numerical simulations to estimate pair plasma multiplicity, considering various physical factors affecting cascade efficiency.

Findings

Maximum pair multiplicity is ~few x 10^5.

Cascade efficiency is highest in curvature radiation/synchrotron regime.

Pair multiplicity weakly depends on magnetic field strength and curvature radius.

Abstract

We study the efficiency of pair production in polar caps of young pulsars under a variety of conditions to estimate the maximum possible multiplicity of pair plasma in pulsar magnetospheres. We develop a semi-analytic model for calculation of cascade multiplicity which allows efficient exploration of the parameter space and corroborate it with direct numerical simulations. Pair creation processes are considered separately from particle acceleration in order to assess different factors affecting cascade efficiency, with acceleration of primary particles described by recent self-consistent non-stationary model of pair cascades. We argue that the most efficient cascades operate in the curvature radiation/synchrotron regime, the maximum multiplicity of pair plasma in pulsar magnetospheres is ~few x 10^5. The multiplicity of pair plasma in magnetospheres of young energetic pulsars weakly depends on the strength of the magnetic field and the radius of curvature of magnetic field lines and has a stronger dependence on pulsar inclination angle. This result questions assumptions about very high pair plasma multiplicity in theories of pulsar wind nebulae.