Particle-acceleration location and mechanism in pulsar magnetospheres

Determine where and how particles are accelerated in the magnetospheres of rotation-powered pulsars.

Background

The paper discusses pulsed emission from rotation-powered pulsars across radio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths. These emissions are attributed to particles accelerated by strong electromagnetic fields in pulsar magnetospheres, but the specific acceleration site and physical mechanism remain unresolved. Identifying them is important for distinguishing competing emission models, including the outer-gap and current-sheet models, which can reproduce similar observed light-curve features.

References

It remains unknown where and how particles are accelerated in the pulsar magnetosphere.

— Polarization of Synchrotron Emission from Rotation Powered Pulsars  (2609.19741 - Saeki et al., 17 Sep 2026) in Section 1, Introduction

Open questions such as the trigger of coherent radio emission and the exact location of emission region in the pulsar magnetosphere have yet to be fully answered.

— Probing fundamental physics with ALMA2040 mm-wavelength observations of neutron stars  (2610.21589 - Liu et al., 15 Oct 2026) in Section 1, “Scientific context and open questions”