Chiral anomaly effects in pulsar magnetospheres*

In the gap regions of pulsar magnetospheres, the chiral anomaly can be activated by the strong magnetic field and the parallel component of the electric field. The estimates show that a substantial chiral charge density is produced in the electron-positron plasma. The resulting chiral charge should trigger the chiral plasma instability, which, in turn, should lead to the emission of helical electromagnetic modes. The frequencies of the relevant modes lie in the radio to the near-infrared range. It is argued that helical modes have a substantial amount of energy and, thus, can modify observable features of pulsars.