Non-stationary pair plasma in a pulsar magnetosphere and the two-stream Instability

We test a new emission mechanism in pulsar magnetospheres, eventually responsible in part for the high level of observed radio radiation. This is carried out by comparing the efficiency of the two-stream instability of Langmuir waves in a pulsar emission region, where the stationary and non-stationary characters of pair plasma outflows produced in the gap region are characterized by two different time-scales. On the shorter time-scale, the Ruderman Sutherland ‘sparking’ phenomenon leads to the creation of pair plasma clouds, in motion along magnetic field lines, that contain particles with a large spectrum of momenta. The overlapping of particles with different energies produced in successive clouds results in an efficient ‘two stream’-like instability. This effect is a consequence of the non-stationary character of the pair plasma produced in the gap region, just above the magnetic poles of the neutron star. On a long time-scale, resulting pair plasma outflows in pulsar magnetospheres can be treated as stationary. In this case, the instability which results from interaction between existing primary beam particles and the pair plasma is negligible, whereas the instability owing to interaction between electrons and positrons of the pair plasma itself, and more precisely to their relative drift motion along curved magnetic field lines, is effective. We derive characteristic features of the triggered instability, using specific distribution functions to describe either particles in the assembly of clouds or relative drifting of electrons and positrons in these same plasma clouds. Although linear and local, our treatment suggests that non-stationary effects may compete with, or even dominate over, drifting effects in parts of pulsar emission regions.