Current instabilities in the pulsar magnetosphere

Pulsars are rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic dipole fields (B = 104 − 109T), and high induced surface potentials (ca. 1014V). A strong charged particle current is driven out of the polar cap. It returns along an equatorial current sheet. The total dissipated power of the current system is a significant fraction of the observed spin-down power of the pulsar. The Pierce instability occurs when particles are constrained to move in only one dimension and the field from the accumulated space charge exceeds the accelerating background field. Relativistic particle motion enhances the instability which forms narrow regions ( cm) of high particle densities and low velocities separated by much longer but more tenuous relativistic flows. The calculated spectrum, power budget and time scales of the magnetospheric Pierce instabilities match the observed radio properties of pulsars.