Coupled axisymmetric pulsar magnetospheres

Understand

We present solutions of force-free pulsar magnetospheres coupled with a uniform external magnetic field aligned with the dipole magnetic moment of the pulsar.

• The inclusion of the uniform magnetic field has the following consequences: The equatorial current sheet is truncated to a finite length, the fraction of field lines that are open increases, and the open field lines are confined within a cylindrical surface instead of becoming radial.
• A strong external magnetic field antiparallel to the dipole allows for solutions where the pulsar magnetic field is fully enclosed within an ellipsoidal surface.
• Configurations of fully enclosed or confined magnetospheres may appear in a double neutron star (DNS) where one of the components is a slowly rotating, strongly magnetised pulsar and the other a weakly magnetised millisecond pulsar.