Data from FAST and MeerKAT surveys as a test of radio pulsar physics

TL;DR

This study uses data from FAST and MeerKAT surveys to analyze radio pulsar polarization, confirming theories about mode propagation, particle production, and magnetic axis evolution in neutron stars.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence supporting the classical Ruderman-Sutherland model and details the polarization characteristics of pulsar profiles.

Findings

Mean profiles formed by the O-mode are wider than those by the X-mode.

Observations support the Ruderman-Sutherland vacuum model of particle generation.

Inclination angles of magnetic axes tend toward 90 degrees during evolution.

Abstract

The data from the FAST and MeerKAT surveys has significantly increased the number of radio pulsars for which the polarization characteristics of their mean profiles have been determined in detail. This has allowed us to confirm earlier conclusions both about the nature of propagation of two orthogonal modes in the pulsar magnetospheres and about the mechanism of particle production in neutron star polar regions and their evolutionary features. We can now say with even greater confidence that mean profiles formed by the O-mode are significantly wider than those formed by the X-mode. Moreover, the observations confirm the validity of the classical Ruderman-Sutherland vacuum model of particle generation, as well as the evolution of the inclination angles of the magnetic axis to the rotation one in the direction of $90^{\circ}$.