2004/07/31 by Hongsu Kim, Hyosun Kim, Hyung Mok Lee +4
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08839.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 358 (2005) 998-1018 · 42 pages, 3 figures, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.(MNRAS), in press
arxiv created 2005/01/19 · openalex publication_date 2005/03/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A fully general relativistic description of pulsar magnetospheres is provided. To be more specific, a study of pulsar magnetospheres is performed in the context of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) employing the so-called Grad–Shafranov approach. Not surprisingly, the resulting Grad–Shafranov equations and all the other related general relativistic MHD equations turn out to take essentially the same structures as those for a (rotating) black hole magnetosphere. Other different natures between the two cases including the structure of singular surfaces of MHD flows in each magnetosphere are essentially encoded in the different space–time (metric) contents. In this way, pulsar and black hole magnetospheres can be described in a unified fashion. Particularly, the direction of poloidal currents circulating in the neutron star magnetosphere turns out to be the same as that of currents circulating in a black hole magnetosphere, which in turn leads to pulsar and black hole spin-down via ‘magnetic braking’.