Influence of Rotation on Pulsar Radiation Characteristics

Abstract

We present a relativistic model for pulsar radio emission by including the effect of rotation on coherent curvature radiation by bunches. We find that rotation broadens the width of the leading component compared to the width of the trailing component. We estimate the component widths in the average pulse profiles of about 24 pulsars and find that 19 of them have a broader leading component. We explain this difference in component widths by using the nested cone emission geometry. We estimate the effect of pulsar spin on the Stokes parameters and find that the inclination between the rotation and magnetic axes can introduce an asymmetry in the circular polarization of the conal components. We analyze the single-pulse polarization data of PSR B0329+54 at 606 MHz and find that in its conal components, one sign of circular polarization dominates in the leading component, while the other sign dominates in the trailing component. Our simulation shows that changing the sign of the impact parameter changes the sign of the circular polarization as well as the swing of the polarization angle.