{
  "id": "2309.04834",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2023-09-09T16:16:48.000Z",
  "updated": "2023-09-09T16:16:48.000Z",
  "title": "Particle-in-cell simulations of pulsar magnetospheres: transition between electrosphere and force-free regimes",
  "authors": [
    "Fábio Cruz",
    "Thomas Grismayer",
    "Alexander Y. Chen",
    "Anatoly Spitkovsky",
    "Ricardo A. Fonseca",
    "Luis O. Silva"
  ],
  "comment": "19 pages, 18 figures, submitted to A&A",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.HE"
  ],
  "abstract": "Global particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of pulsar magnetospheres are performed with a volume, surface and pair production-based plasma injection schemes to systematically investigate the transition between electrosphere and force-free pulsar magnetospheric regimes. A new extension of the PIC code OSIRIS to model pulsar magnetospheres using a two-dimensional axisymmetric spherical grid is presented. The sub-algorithms of the code and thorough benchmarks are presented in detail, including a new first-order current deposition scheme that conserves charge to machine precision. It is shown that all plasma injection schemes produce a range of magnetospheric regimes. Active solutions can be obtained with surface and volume injection schemes when using artificially large plasma injection rates, and with pair production-based plasma injection for sufficiently large separation between kinematic and pair production energy scales.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2023-09-09T16:16:48.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "pulsar magnetospheres",
      "large plasma injection rates",
      "force-free regimes",
      "particle-in-cell simulations",
      "production-based plasma injection schemes"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 19,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}