20,053 research outputs found
Spark Model for Pulsar Radiation Modulation Patterns
A non-stationary polar gap model first proposed by Ruderman & Sutherland
(1975) is modified and applied to spark-associated pulsar emission at radio
wave-lengths. It is argued that under physical and geometrical conditions
prevailing above pulsar polar cap, highly non-stationary spark discharges do
not occur at random positions. Instead, sparks should tend to operate in well
determined preferred regions. At any instant the polar cap is populated as
densely as possible with a number of two-dimensional sparks with a
characteristic dimension as well as a typical distance between adjacent sparks
being about the polar gap height. Our model differs, however, markedly from its
original 'hollow cone' version. The key feature is the quasi-central spark
driven by pair production process and anchored to the local pole of a
sunspot-like surface magnetic field. This fixed spark prevents the motion of
other sparks towards the pole, restricting it to slow circumferential drift
across the planes of field lines converging at the local pole. We argue that
the polar spark constitutes the core pulsar emission, and that the annular
rings of drifting sparks contribute to conal components of the pulsar beam. We
found that the number of nested cones in the beam of typical pulsar should not
excced three; a number also found by Mitra & Deshpande (1999) using a
completely different analysis.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Ap
The Morse-Sard theorem revisited
Let be positive integers with . We establish an abstract
Morse-Sard-type theorem which allows us to deduce, on the one hand, a previous
result of De Pascale's for Sobolev functions with and, on the other hand, also the following
new result: if satisfies
for every
(that is, is a Stepanov function), then the set
of critical values of is Lebesgue-null in . In the case that
we also show that this limiting condition holding for every
, where is a set of zero
-dimensional Hausdorff measure for some , is
sufficient to guarantee the same conclusion.Comment: We corrected some misprints and made some changes in the introductio
Time-scales of Radio Emission in PSR J0437-4715 at 327 MHz
Time-scales of radio emission are studied in PSR J0437-4715 at 327 MHz using
almost half a million periods of high quality data from Ooty Radio Telescope.
The radio emission in this milli second pulsar occurs on a short (s) time-scale
of approximately 0.026 +- 0.001 periods, and on a (l) time-scale that is much
longer than the widths of the components of the integrated profile
(approximately 0.05 periods). The width of the s emission increases with its
increasing relative contribution to the total radio emission. This may provide
constraints for the details of discharge of vacuum gaps above pulsar polar
caps. The s emission occasionally takes place in the form of intense spikes,
which are confined to the main component of the integrated profile for 90 per
cent of the time. The positions of spikes within a component of the integrated
profile have no simple relation to the shape of that component. This may have
impact on the interpretation of the integrated profile components in terms of
independent regions of emission on the polar cap.Comment: Accepted for publication in Vol 543 (1 Nov 2000) of The Astrophysical
Journa
Frequency dependence of pulsar radiation patterns
We report on new results from simultaneous, dual frequency, single pulse
observation of PSR B0329+54 using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. We find
that the longitude separation of subpulses at two different frequencies (238
and 612 MHz) is less than that for the corresponding components in the average
profile. A similar behaviour has been noticed before in a number of pulsars. We
argue that subpulses are emitted within narrow flux tubes of the dipolar field
lines and that the mean pulsar beam has a conal structure. In such a model the
longitudes of profile components are determined by the intersection of the line
of sight trajectory with subpulse-associated emission beams. Thus, we show that
the difference in the frequency dependence of subpulse and profile component
longitudes is a natural property of the conal model of pulsar emission beam. We
support our conclusions by numerical modelling of pulsar emission, using the
known parameters for this pulsar, which produce results that agree very well
with our dual frequency observations.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Non-linear metric perturbation enhancement of primordial gravitational waves
We present the evolution of the full set of Einstein equations during
preheating after inflation. We study a generic supersymmetric model of hybrid
inflation, integrating fields and metric fluctuations in a 3-dimensional
lattice. We take initial conditions consistent with Eintein's constraint
equations. The induced preheating of the metric fluctuations is not large
enough to backreact onto the fields, but preheating of the scalar modes does
affect the evolution of vector and tensor modes. In particular, they do enhance
the induced stochastic background of gravitational waves during preheating,
giving an energy density in general an order of magnitude larger than that
obtained by evolving the tensors fluctuations in an homogeneous background
metric. This enhancement can improve the expectations for detection by planned
gravitational waves observatories.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figures, matches Phys. Rev. Lett. versio
Hall drift in the crust of neutron stars - necessary for radio pulsar activity?
The radio pulsar models based on the existence of an inner accelerating gap
located above the polar cap rely on the existence of a small scale, strong
surface magnetic field . This field exceeds the dipolar field ,
responsible for the braking of the pulsar rotation, by at least one order of
magnitude. Neither magnetospheric currents nor small scale field components
generated during neutron star's birth can provide such field structures in old
pulsars. While the former are too weak to create G, the ohmic decay time of the latter is much shorter than
years. We suggest that a large amount of magnetic energy is stored in a
toroidal field component that is confined in deeper layers of the crust, where
the ohmic decay time exceeds years. This toroidal field may be created
by various processes acting early in a neutron star's life. The Hall drift is a
non-linear mechanism that, due to the coupling between different components and
scales, may be able to create the demanded strong, small scale, magnetic spots.
Taking into account both realistic crustal microphysics and a minimal cooling
scenario, we show that, in axial symmetry, these field structures are created
on a Hall time scale of - years. These magnetic spots can be
long-lived, thereby fulfilling the pre-conditions for the appearance of the
radio pulsar activity. Such magnetic structures created by the Hall drift are
not static, and dynamical variations on the Hall time scale are expected in the
polar cap region.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the ERPM conferences, Zielona
Gora, April 201
The spark-associated soliton model for pulsar radio emission
We propose a new, self-consistent theory of coherent pulsar radio emission
based on the non-stationary sparking model of Ruderman & Sutherland (1975),
modified by Gil & Sendyk (2000) in the accompanying Paper I. According to these
authors, the polar cap is populated as densely as possible by a number of
sparks with a characteristic perpendicular dimension D approximately equal to
the polar gap height scale h, separated from each other also by about h. Each
spark reappears in approximately the same place on the polar cap for a time
scale much longer than its life-time and delivers to the open magnetosphere a
sequence of electron-positron clouds which flow orderly along a flux tube of
dipolar magnetic field lines. The overlapping of particles with different
momenta from consecutive clouds leads to effective two-stream instability,
which triggers electrostatic Langmuir waves at the altitudes of about 50
stellar radii. The electrostatic oscillations are modulationally unstable and
their nonlinear evolution results in formation of ``bunch-like'' charged
solitons. A characteristic soliton length along magnetic field lines is about
30 cm, so they are capable of emitting coherent curvature radiation at radio
wavelengths. The net soliton charge is about 10^21 fundamental charges,
contained within a volume of about 10^14 cm^3. For a typical pulsar, there are
about 10^5 solitons associated with each of about 25 sparks operating on the
polar cap at any instant. One soliton moving relativisticaly along dipolar
field lines with a Lorentz factor of the order of 100 generates a power of
about 10^21 erg/s by means of curvature radiation. Then the total power of a
typical radio pulsar can be estimated as being about 10^(27-28) erg/s.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Ap
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