Pulsar Physics without Magnetars

Almost 40 years after the discovery of pulsars – and despite a plethora of secured data on them – pul-sar theory is still beset by a number of fundamental inconsistencies. In this short contribution, I will argue that (i) magnetars do not exist, (ii) (ordinary) pulsars turnoff (or 'die') when their wind pressure falls short of keeping the CSM at a safe distance, exceeding 10 15 cm, whereupon they can mimic magnetars, (iii) msec pulsars are born fast (in core-collapse SNe), and are much older inside globular clusters than outside of them, (iv) neutron-star corotat-ing magnetospheres can oscillate almost in resonance with their spin frequency, giving rise to pulse drifting, and to QPOs of accreting binary X-ray sources, and (v) the dying pulsars are the dominant sources of the cosmic rays, and of the GRBs. Here are four theses on pulsars which I favour for more than 13 years over alternative ones, for reasons given subsequently , and which I will use as assumptions in the rest of this communication. They will lead to new insights – hopefully correct ones – into the many important roles which pulsars play in the Galaxy. They are: • Pulsars blow strong, leptonic, extremely relativistic winds. • Pulsars die statistically at a (spindown) age of 10 6.4 yr. • Pulsar magnetic fields are dipoles stabilized by toroidal bandages. • Pulsar surfaces are covered by (soft X-ray) hot pair coronae. The first of these four theses is gleaned from the fact that at least 17 (nearby) pulsars have been seen to blow bowshocks into their CSM, of radii between 10 15 cm and 10 18 cm, mapped at Hα, X-rays, radio, and/or even broad-band (Kundt, 1998). Ram-pressure-balance estimates imply wind densities some ξ = 10 4 times the (shunting) Goldreich-Julian density escaping at relativistic speeds, i.e. very strong winds when launched by the unipolar-induction electric voltage (Kundt & Schaaf 1993). I consider such strong winds incompatible with polar-cap sparking, or with outer gaps in the magnetosphere. Note that bowshocks can be missing, cf. Hui & Becker (2006): probably in underdense regions of the Milky Way, if the latter floats on pair plasma as the volume-filling medium (Kundt 2004, p.35). A statistical pulsar age of 10 6.4 yr can be read off Fig. 1: the proportionality N ∼ τ drops exponentially beyond this spindown age. In my 2005 contribution to the Berlin-Adlershof meeting, I have revived …