A current circuit model of pulsar radio emission
  We present the outline of a new model for the coherent radio emission of pulsars that succeeds in reproducing the energetics and brightness temperatures of the observed radio emission from the observationally deduced distances of 50-100 pulsar radii above the neutron star in a narrow region.   The restrictions imposed by energy conservation, plasma dynamics of the coherent radiation process and propagation effects are used to apply the action of a plasma process like coherent inverse Compton scattering (CICS) (see Benford, 1992). In accordance with our findings (Kunzl et al. 1998a) this process requires Lorentz factors of about 10 which are lower than in most other radio emission models. This implies that no significant pair production can take place near the surface and we expect charge densities close to the Goldreich-Julian value (Goldreich & Julian (1969)).   To fulfill the energetic and electrodynamic constraints the model requires constant re-acceleration in dissipation regions which can be interpreted as a voltage drop similar to that in a resistive current circuit built of a battery, connecting copper wires and a resistive load.   Using the emission heights for PSR 0329+54 published by Mitra and Rankin (2002) and the spectral data from Malofeev et al. (1994) we find that a constant depth of the dissipation region of about 2 r_NS can account for the observed luminosities and spectral behavior.   The extremely high peak fluxes in the substructures of single pulses can be explained by beaming effects as discussed in Kunzl et al. (1998b). 
Th. Kunzl (MPQ), H. Lesch (USW Munich) and A. Jessner (MPIfR)