Kouichi Hirotani 2006 ApJ 652 1475 doi:10.1086/508317
Kouichi Hirotani1,2
Show affiliationsWe investigate the self-consistent electrodynamic structure of a particle accelerator in the Crab pulsar magnetosphere on the two-dimensional poloidal plane, solving the Poisson equation for the electrostatic potential together with the Boltzmann equations for electrons, positrons, and γ-rays. If the transfield thickness of the gap is thin, the created current density becomes sub-Goldreich-Julian, giving the traditional outer-gap solution but with negligible γ-ray luminosity. As the thickness increases, the created current increases to become super-Goldreich-Julian, giving a new gap solution with substantially screened acceleration electric field in the inner part. In this case, the gap extends toward the neutron star with a small-amplitude positive acceleration field, extracting ions from the stellar surface as a space-charge-limited flow. The acceleration field is highly unscreened in the outer magnetosphere, resulting in a γ-ray spectral shape that is consistent with the observations.
gamma rays: observations; gamma rays: theory; magnetic fields; methods: numerical; pulsars: individual (Crab)
Issue 2 (2006 December 1)
Received 2006 April 2, accepted for publication 2006 August 1
Kouichi Hirotani 2006 ApJ 652 1475
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