Alexander Philippov (Princeton) - How do pulsars shine?

The modeling of pulsar radio and gamma-ray emission suggests that in order to interpret the observations one needs to understand the field geometry and the plasma state in the emission region. In recent years, significant progress has been achieved in understanding the magnetospheric structure in the limit of abundant plasma supply. However, the very presence of dense plasma everywhere in the magnetosphere is not obvious. Even the region where the observed emission is produced is subject to debate. To address this from first principles, we constructed global kinetic simulations of pulsar magnetospheres using radiative relativistic Particle-in-Cell codes with addition of general relativistic effects, so that the physics of plasma production and particle acceleration is captured. In this talk I will describe how plasma is produced in the magnetospheres of pulsars. I will show evidence that observed radio emission is powered by non-stationary discharge at the polar cap. In addition, I will also present modeling of high-energy lightcurves, calculated self-consistently from particle motion in the pulsar magnetosphere.