Simulations of the magnetospheres of accreting millisecond pulsars

Understand

Accreting pulsars power relativistic jets, and display a complex spin phenomenology.

• These behaviours may be closely related to the large-scale configuration of the star's magnetic field, shaped by its interaction with the surrounding accretion disc.
• Here we present the first relativistic simulations of the interaction of a pulsar magnetosphere with an accretion flow.
• Our axisymmetric simulations treat the magnetospheric, or coronal, regions using a resistive extension of force-free electrodynamics.