Magnetospheres of Rotation Powered Pulsars

旋转驱动的脉冲星是最神秘的天体之一。与大多数其他恒星不同，它们的脉冲和非脉冲辐射的能量来自于它们的强磁场和快速自转的复杂耦合。在这项拟议的工作中，首席研究员(PI)将聘请等离子体物理学博士后Brian Yang博士来制作相对论激波的计算机模型，这些激波会激发一些脉冲星(如蟹状星云)周围的细小结构。这项工作有望帮助我们理解磁力和自转是如何在高能下结合在一起，产生射电脉冲和x射线和伽马射线辐射，无论是在脉冲星的磁层中，还是在许多“活跃”星系的中心。

Rotation-powered pulsars are among the most enigmatic of celestial objects. Unlike most other stars the energy responsible for their pulsed and unpulsed radiation is derived from a complicated coupling of their strong magnetic field and their rapid rotation. In the proposed work the Principal Investigator (PI) will employ a postdoctoral fellow in plasma physics, Dr. Brian Yang, to make computer models of relativistic shocks that excite wispy structures around some pulsars such as the Crab nebulae. This work is expected to aid in our understanding of how magnetism and rotation combine at high energies to produce radio pulses and x- and gamma- ray radiation, both in the magnetospheres of pulsars and the centers of many "active" galaxies.