A Model for the Source of Quasi-Harmonic Bursts on the Crab Pulsar

Abstract

A model for the source of microwave bursts from the Crab pulsar in the form of a current sheet with a transversemagnetic field has been investigated. The emission generation mechanism is based on the excitation of plasma waves at the double plasma resonance frequencies in a nonrelativistic nonequilibrium plasma followed by their scattering into electromagnetic waves that escape from the current sheet into the neutron star magnetosphere. The basic parameters of the source explaining the observed characteristics of quasi-harmonic bursts in the interpulses of radio emission from this pulsar have been established.