Research

Physics of Pulsar Magnetospheres

For my PhD thesis I worked on understanding the emission mechanism of pulsars. To achieve this, I have constructed first fully kinetic models of oblique pulsar magnetospheres.

Trajectories of high-energy particles in 60 degrees inclined pulsar magnetosphere. Color in the plane and volume rendering shows current density, black thick lines show magnetic field lines and colored lines show particle trajectories, with magenta color representing the highest energies. Most of the energy gain happens in the equatorial current sheet.

Gamma-ray emission of the 30 degrees inclined pulsar. Radiation is mainly produced via synchrotron mechanism by particles energized in the current sheet beyond the light cylinder. There is a contribution from the return current layer inside the light cylinder. (a) Skymap. Horizontal axis represents pulsar's phase, vertical axis corresponds to different observer's viewing angle, and color shows the intensity of gamma-ray emission. (b) Observed lightcurves for different viewing angles.

Plasma density distribution in the aligned pulsar magnetosphere. I found that the electron-positron discharge near the stellar surface is activated only when the general-relativistic effects are included. White lines show magnetic field lines, and color shows (a) Electron density, (b) positron density. The zoom-in panel (c) shows the non-stationary behavior of the pair cascade.

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