Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2017
At present there exist several well-grounded models of pulsar radiation which do not exactly coincide with each other [e.g. Ruderman and Sutherland (1975), Cheng and Ruderman (1980), Arons and Sharlemann (1979), Arons (1981)]. The creation of a dense, relativistic, electron-positron plasma in the polar regions of rotating neutron star magnetospheres is the point of similarity between these models. Surely the pulsar radiation should be generated in such a plasma. The plasma density near the stellar surface is np ≃ 1016 e to 1017cm–3, and the average Lorentz-factor of the particles is γp = 3 to 10. The plasma is penetrated by the beam of “primary” electrons, extracted from the stellar surface and accelerated by the electric field. The beam parameters are as follows: nb = 7 x 10–2B0P–1, where P is the pulsar period and B0 magnetic field at the stellar surface and γb = 3 x 106 to 107.