Abstract
The magnetospheric plasma distribution in the vicinity of a pulsar at various inclination angles is investigated using a new relativistic, parallel 3D Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code, DYNTHNA3D. Our initial simulation results are presented here. These show similar solutions to those obtained from previous numerical simulations, which show the fundamental plasma distribution in the vicinity of an aligned rotating neutron star to consist of two polar domes and an equatorial torus of trapped non-neutral plasma of opposite sign, separated by a vacuum gap. Furthermore, our code allows for off-axis simulations and we have we have found that this plasma distribution collapses into a quad-lobe charge-separated non-neutral distribution in the case of an orthogonal rotator, bearing a stark resemblance to that predicted theoretically by Parish in 1974, [11], with the exception that in our results, the plasma remains trapped close to the stellar surface by the force-free ((E) over right arrow -(B) over right arrow = 0) surfaces observed in this region.
| Original language | English (Ireland) |
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| Title of host publication | 40 YEARS OF PULSARS: MILLISECOND PULSARS, MAGNETARS AND MORE |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2007 |
Authors (Note for portal: view the doc link for the full list of authors)
- Authors
- Mc Donald, J,Shearer, A,Bassa, CG,Wang, Z,Cumming, A,Kaspi, VM