It was as early as the 1980s that A V Gurevich and his group proposed a theory to explain the magnetosphere of radio pulsars and the mechanism by which they produce coherent radio emission. The theory has been sharply criticized and is currently rarely mentioned when discussing the observational properties of radio pulsars, even though all the criticisms were in their time disproved in a most thorough and detailed manner. Recent results show even more conclusively that the theory has no internal inconsistencies. New observational data also demonstrate the validity of the basic conclusions of the theory. Based on the latest results on the effects of wave propagation in the magnetosphere of a neuron star, we show that the developed theory does indeed allow quantitative predictions of the evolution of neutron stars and the properties of the observed radio emission.

PACS: 52.35.−g, 95.30.Gv, 97.60.Gb (all) DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.0183.201302e.0179 URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2013/2/d/ 000319332300004 2-s2.0-84878237860 2013PhyU...56..164B Citation: Beskin V S, Istomin Ya N, Philippov A A "Radio pulsars: the search for truth" Phys. Usp. 56 164–179 (2013) BibTexBibNote ® (generic)BibNote ® (RIS)MedlineRefWorks Received: 14th, March 2012, revised: 22nd, May 2012, accepted: 30th, May 2012 Оригинал: Бескин В С, Истомин Я Н, Филиппов А А «Радиопульсары — поиски истины» УФН 183 179–194 (2013); DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0183.201302e.0179