Incompatibility of the continuous steady-state models of pulsar magnetospheres with relativistic magnetohydrodynamics.
Abstract
On the basis of the relativistic theory of magnetohydrodynamics, it is shown that, within the framework of the canonical steady-state axisymmetric model of a pulsar's magnetosphere, the conservation laws for angular momentum and energy do not in fact allow of a flux of angular momentum which is everywhere directed away from the neutron star, unless at the Alfve'nic critical point of the magnetospheric flow there exists a discontinuity.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- June 1976
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/175.3.645
- Bibcode:
- 1976MNRAS.175..645A
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Models;
- Magnetohydrodynamic Flow;
- Pulsar Magnetospheres;
- Pulsars;
- Relativistic Plasmas;
- Stellar Atmospheres;
- Conservation Laws;
- Continuity Equation;
- Critical Point;
- Neutron Stars;
- Steady State;
- Astrophysics