The simplest theory that connects the power generated by a spinning neutron star to the star's rotation rate

imagines the neutron star as a dipole magnet spinning in a vacuum. Such a magnet generates dipole electromagnetic wavesthis radiation is called a Poynting flux. One assumes in such a calculation that the magnetic pole is tilted with respect to the rotation pole. Close to the star the magnetic field appears to be nearly a dipole; in this region the magnetic fields themselves appear to be rotating around the spin axis with the star, as though the field lines were wire loops attached physically to the star. As one moves away from the star, this picture breaks down; the field lines begin to bend away from the direction of rotation, as though a wind were blowing our imaginary lines of wire so that they trailed the rotation of the star. This happens at the light cylinder, an abstract cylinder aligned with the rotation axis of the star that synchronously rotates with the star with the velocity of the speed of light. Beyond the light cylinder, the magnetic field lines lag so far behind that they become transverse to a line from the star. These field lines propagate outward at the speed of light, eventually becoming pure electromagnetic waves with a period equal to the rotational period of the pulsar. These waves carry rotational energy away from the pulsar. This power loss is proportional to 4 B2 sin2, where is the rotation rate of the star, B is the magnetic field strength, and is the angle between the magnetic field axis and the rotation axis of the star. The first point from this simple calculation is that pulsars lose energy very rapidly when they are born; for this reason, only very young pulsars rotate rapidly. The second point is that the measurement of a pulsar's slowing is a measurement of the pulsar's magnetic field under this theory. The Poynting flux theory gives a magnetic field strength of order 1012 Gauss at the neutron star's surface, which compares to the Earth's magnetic field of 0.3 Gauss. Subsequent observations of x-ray spectra from x-ray pulsars, which are neutrons stars with strong magnetic field in compact binary systems, find similar values for the magnetic field strength of a neutron star. While the Poynting flux gives a nice, simple estimate of energy loss, its gives no explanation for the electromagnetic waves we see from a pulsar. The radiation we see is not the electromagnetic radiation from a spinning magnetic field. That radiation has a characteristic frequency of 1 Hz, which is many orders of magnitude below the radio frequencies. The radio waves we see are a consequence of the pulsar's strong magnetic field. Repeating what was said before, a changing magnetic field generates an electric field. At the surface of a pulsar, in the absence of charges or currents, the rotation of the magnetic field generates an incredible electric field. The electric field strength is R B/c, where R is the star's radius and c is the speed of light. For a pulsar period of 1 second, radius of 15 km, and magnetic field of 1012G, the electric field is 3 108esu. This electric field not only exerts many orders of magnitude more force on a proton than does the star's gravitational field, it can accelerate a proton to 108 times its rest mass

energy over a stellar radius, and an electron to 1011 times its rest mass energy. The generation of an electric field at the star's surface is what drives all of the interesting physics associated with a pulsar. At this point the physics becomes quite complex, because the current generated at the pulsar surface modifies the electric field driving the current and the magnetic field generating the electric field. Our initial assumption that the region above a pulsar's surface is a vacuum is wrong, because the electric field that gets generated in the vacuum must drive a current that alters the electric field. The precise structure of the magnetic and electric fields and of the electric current is an outstanding problem in astrophysics. The important point, however, is that an electric field of sufficient strength to drive a current is generated by the pulsar's rotating magnetic field. One final bit of exotic physics: if an electric field becomes too large, it spontaneously generates electrons and positrons that extract energy from the electric field. In other words, the electric field decays into matter and antimatter. This process appears to provide much of the current in a pulsar, rather than the extraction of electrons and protons from the star's surface. The current generated by a pulsar flows away from the star along the magnetic field lines at the magnetic poles of the star. Because the field lines are curved, the charges in the current follow a curved path as they move away from the star. This motion causes the charges to radiate electromagnetic waves, called curvature radiation, at radio frequencies. Because the emission in in the direction of the field lines, which are pointing away from the star's poles, the radio waves are emitted in a beam aligned with the magnetic axis. As the star rotates, the orientation of the magnetic axis changes relative to Earth, and the radiation from the pulsar appears to pulse.

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