Reception of Radio Waves from Pulsars

Abstract

The beamed emission by relativistic sources moving along the magnetic dipolar field lines occurs in the direction of tangents to the field lines. To receive such a beamed radiation, the line of sight must align with the tangent within the beaming angle 1/γ, where γ is the particle Lorentz factor. By solving the viewing geometry, in an inclined and rotating dipole magnetic field, we show that at any given pulse phase the observer can receive the radiation only from specific altitudes. We find that the outer conal emission is received from higher altitudes than the inner conal components including the core. At any pulse phase, low frequency emission comes from the higher altitudes than higher-frequency emission. As an application of our model, we have used it to explain the emission heights of conal components in PSR B0329+54.