The Role of Rotation and Polar-Cap currents on Pulsar Radio Emission and Polarization

Abstract

Perturbations such as rotation and polar-cap current (PC-current) have been believed to greatly affect the pulsar radio emission and polarization. The two effects have not been considered simultaneously in the literature; each one of these has been considered separately, and a picture has been deduced by simply superposing them, but such an approach can lead to spurious results. Hence, by considering pulsar rotation and PC-current perturbations together instead of one at a time, we have developed a single particle curvature radiation model, which is expected to be much more realistic. By simulating a set of typical pulse profiles, we have made an attempt to explain most of the observational results of pulsar radio emission and polarization. The model predicts that due to the perturbations the leading side component can become either stronger or weaker than the corresponding trailing one in any given cone, depending on the passage of the sight line and modulation (nonuniform source distribution). Further, we find that the phase delay of the polarization angle inflection point with respect to the core component greatly depends on the viewing geometry. The correlation between the sign reversal of circular polarization and the polarization angle swing in the case of core-dominated pulsars becomes obscure once the perturbations and modulation become significant. However, the correlation between the negative circular polarization and the increasing polarization angle and vice versa is very clear in the case of conal-double pulsars. The "kinky"-type distortions in polarization angle swing could be due to the incoherent superposition of modulated emission in the presence of strong perturbations.