Abstract:
We have developed a relativistic model for pulsar radio emission and polarization by taking into account a detailed geometry of emission region, rotation, and modulation. The sparks activity on the polar cap leads to plasma columns in the emission region and modulated emission. By considering relativistic plasma bunches streaming out along the rotating dipolar field lines as a source of curvature radiation, we have deduced the polarization state of the radiation field in terms of the Stokes parameters. We have simulated a set of typical pulse profiles and analyzed the role of viewing geometry, rotation, and modulation in the pulsar polarization profiles. Our simulations explain most of the diverse behaviors of polarization generally found in pulsar radio profiles. We show that both the "antisymmetric" and "symmetric" types of circular polarization are possible within the framework of curvature radiation. We also show that the "kinky" nature in the polarization position angle traverses might be due to the rotation and modulation effects. The phase lag of the polarization position angle inflection point relative to the phase of core peak depends upon the rotationally induced asymmetry in the curvature of source trajectory and modulation.
