General Relativistic Electromagnetism and Particle Acceleration in Pulsar Polar Cap

Abstract

We reconstruct a 3+1 formalism of general relativistic electromagnetism, and derive the equations of motion of charged particles in the pulsar magnetosphere, taking account of the inclination between the rotation axis and the magnetic axis. Apart from the previous works where space charge is evaluated by assuming the flow velocity being the light speed, we analyze particle motion in the polar cap, finding that gravity changes significantly its dynamics and the condition for acceleration.

Comments: 14 pages, 3 figures, aastex, errors corrected, accepted for publication in ApJ