Formation of dense charged bunches in vacuum gaps

It is pointed out that the pair-production discharge mechanism originally applied to pulsars by Sturrock (1971) automatically produces dense bunches that can produce coherence at radio frequencies with sufficient intensity to simulate pulsar action, about 10 exp -5 of the total spindown energy. Such action requires cascading in vacuum gaps as suggested by Cheng et al. (1976). The natural action of such discharging would be to eliminate such gaps, and it is suggested that it is the inclination of the neutron star magnetic moment producing large-amplitude radiation fields that drive away plasma otherwise trapped at large distances from the neutron star. Other questions, such as heating of the surface and gamma-ray luminosities, need to be addressed if such a mechanism is to be incorporated into a pulsar model.