The extended pulsar magnetosphere

Abstract

We present the structure of the 3D ideal magnetohydrodynamics pulsar magnetosphere to a radius 10 times that of the light cylinder, a distance about an order of magnitude larger than any previous such numerical treatment. Its overall structure exhibits a stable, smooth, well-defined undulating current sheet which approaches the kinematic split monopole solution of Bogovalov only after a careful introduction of diffusivity even in the highest resolution simulations. It also exhibits an intriguing spiral region at the crossing of two zero-charge surfaces on the current sheet, which shows a destabilizing behaviour more prominent in higher resolution simulations. We discuss the possibility that this region is physically (and not numerically) unstable. Finally, we present the spiral pulsar antenna radiation pattern. © 2012 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS.