Pulsar Current Sheets - Bulk Particle Trajectories
- Written by:
- Tom Bridgman and
- Francis Reddy
- Scientific consulting by:
- Gabriele Brambilla
- Produced by:
- Scott Wiessinger
- View full credits
Scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated “pulsar in a box” are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars, also called pulsars. The model traces the paths of charged particles in magnetic and electric fields near the neutron star, revealing behaviors that may help explain how pulsars emit gamma-ray and radio pulses with ultraprecise timing.
A pulsar is the crushed core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. The core is so compressed that more mass than the Sun's squeezes into a ball no wider than Manhattan Island in New York City. This process also revvs up its rotation and strengthens its magnetic and electric fields.
Various physical processes ensure that most of the particles around a pulsar are either electrons or their antimatter counterparts, positrons. To trace the behavior and energies of these particles, the researchers used a comparatively new type of pulsar model called a “particle in cell” (PIC) simulation.
The PIC technique lets scientists explore the pulsar from first principles, starting with a spinning, magnetized meutron star. The computer code injects electrons and positrons at the pulsar's surface and tracks how they interact with the electric and magnetic fields. It's computationally intensive because the particle motions affect the fields and the fields affect the particles, and everything is moving near the speed of light.
This visualization shows the bulk particle flows, made up of low-energy electrons and positrons which comprise the majority of the particles. Darker blue trails represent slow electrons, darker red trails represent slow positrons. White trails indicate high speed (relativisitic) particles.
A pulsar is the crushed core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. The core is so compressed that more mass than the Sun's squeezes into a ball no wider than Manhattan Island in New York City. This process also revvs up its rotation and strengthens its magnetic and electric fields.
Various physical processes ensure that most of the particles around a pulsar are either electrons or their antimatter counterparts, positrons. To trace the behavior and energies of these particles, the researchers used a comparatively new type of pulsar model called a “particle in cell” (PIC) simulation.
The PIC technique lets scientists explore the pulsar from first principles, starting with a spinning, magnetized meutron star. The computer code injects electrons and positrons at the pulsar's surface and tracks how they interact with the electric and magnetic fields. It's computationally intensive because the particle motions affect the fields and the fields affect the particles, and everything is moving near the speed of light.
This visualization shows the bulk particle flows, made up of low-energy electrons and positrons which comprise the majority of the particles. Darker blue trails represent slow electrons, darker red trails represent slow positrons. White trails indicate high speed (relativisitic) particles.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Data visualizer
- Tom Bridgman (GST) [Lead]
Writer
- Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park) [Lead]
Scientists
- Gabriele Brambilla (University of Milan) [Lead]
- Alice Harding (NASA/GSFC)
Producer
- Scott Wiessinger (KBRwyle) [Lead]
Papers
This visualization is based on the following papers:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.
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