Speaker
Description
Coherent radio emission is observed from a variety of compact astrophysical objects with relatively weak magnetic fields, including white dwarfs, millisecond pulsars, and possibly long-period radio transients and black hole magnetospheres. In such environments, the standard pair discharge mechanism—driven by synchrotron radiation and one-photon pair production—fails because the low magnetic field strength suppresses photon conversion. I will present a discharge mechanism that operates efficiently in weak-field magnetospheres: inverse Compton up-scattering of background photons followed by either two-photon or one-photon pair creation. I will also show particle-in-cell simulations, which demonstrate that these mechanisms robustly generate pair cascades. The resulting system generates electromagnetic field fluctuations capable of producing coherent radio emission, providing a natural explanation for radio activity in low-field compact objects.