Radio pulsar disk electrodynamics

We outline the macroscopic physics of a disk close to an isolated, magnetized, rotating neutron star. It seems likely that such systems are formed from time to time in the universe. The neutron star acts as a Faraday disk dynamo, and the disk acts as both a load and a neutral sheet, permitting the polar cap current to return to the neutron star and also splitting a dipolar magnetic field into two monopolar halves. Michel and Dessler have proposed that such systems are radio pulsars. The dominant energy loss is from the stellar wind torque (giving a deceleration index n = 7/3), and the next contribution is dissipation in the ''auroral'' zones, where the current returns to the star in a sheet about 5 cm thick. The latter is comparable to the observed radio luminosities and is in reasonable accord with the data. The disk itself may be a source of visible radiation comparable to that in pulsed radiofrequency emission. As the pulsar ages, the disk expands and narrows into a ring, the plausible consequence of which could be cessation of pulsed emission at periods of a few seconds