Time-Dependent 3D Magnetohydrodynamic Pulsar Magnetospheres: Oblique
  Rotators
  The current state of the art in pulsar magnetosphere modeling assumes the
force-free limit of magnetospheric plasma. This limit retains only partial
information about plasma velocity and neglects plasma inertia and temperature.
We carried out time-dependent 3D relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)
simulations of oblique pulsar magnetospheres that improve upon force-free by
retaining the full plasma velocity information and capturing plasma heating in
strong current layers. We find rather low levels of magnetospheric dissipation,
with less than 10% of pulsar spindown energy dissipated within a few light
cylinder radii, and the MHD spindown that is consistent with that in
force-free. While oblique magnetospheres are qualitatively similar to the
rotating split-monopole force-free solution at large radii, we find substantial
quantitative differences with the split-monopole, e.g., the luminosity of the
pulsar wind is more equatorially concentrated than the split-monopole at high
obliquities, and the flow velocity is modified by the emergence of reconnection
flow directed into the current sheet.
