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Relativistic magnetospheres: Corotating and streaming formulations for the charge filled case. (English) Zbl 0589.76150

Summary: A steady state model for a charge separated, relativistic, pulsar magnetosphere without vacuum gaps is developed. At first, the inertia of the magnetospheric particles is neglected, yielding a corotating model for an arbitrarily oriented dipole magnetic field at the origin. For finite mass particles in the magnetosphere, additional components to the magnetic and electric fields are required to maintain corotation. Particle streaming in the corotating frame is included next. First the single particle motion is calculated for arbitrary fields assuming small velocities in the corotating frame. Then effects of the collective motion of the particles on the fields are calculated. For the axisymmetric case, a model is developed from which the fields, charge density and velocities can be computed. With a restriction on the boundary conditions, an analytical model is formulated for the case of arbitrary aligned magnetic multipoles. Vacuum gaps, essential in a realistic pulsar magnetosphere [e. g.: N. J. Holloway and M. H. L. Pryce, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 194, 95-110 (1981)] are incorporated in a subsequent study.

MSC:

76Y05 Quantum hydrodynamics and relativistic hydrodynamics
85A05 Galactic and stellar dynamics
83C55 Macroscopic interaction of the gravitational field with matter (hydrodynamics, etc.)
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