Curvature Radiation in Pulsar Magnetospheric Plasma

We consider the curvature radiation of a pointlike charge moving relativistically along curved magnetic field lines through a pulsar magnetospheric electron-positron plasma. We demonstrate that the radiation power is largely suppressed compared with the vacuum case, but still at a considerable level, high enough to explain the observed pulsar luminosities. The outgoing waves are polarized perpendicularly to the plane of the dipolar magnetic field lines. Our results strongly support coherent curvature radiation by the spark-associated solitons as a plausible mechanism of pulsar radio emission.