Eclipse models

Three existing eclipse models for the PSR 1957 + 20 pulsar are discussed in terms of their requirements and the information they yield about the pulsar wind: the interacting wind from a companion model, the magnetosphere model, and the occulting disk model. It is shown out that the wind model requires an MHD wind from the pulsar, with enough particles that the Poynting flux of the wind can be thermalized; in this model, a large flux of energetic radiation from the pulsar is required to accompany the wind and drive the wind off the companion. The magnetosphere model requires an EM wind, which is Poynting flux dominated; the advantage of this model over the wind model is that the plasma density inside the magnetosphere can be orders of magnitude larger than in a magnetospheric tail blown back by wind interaction. The occulting disk model also requires an EM wind so that the interaction would be pushed down onto the companion surface, minimizing direct interaction of the wind with the orbiting macroscopic particles