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Pulsars show irregularities in their pulsed radio emission that originatefrom propagation effects and the intrinsic activity of the source. In thiswork, we investigate the role played by magnetic reconnection and the formationof plasmoids in the pulsar wind current sheet as a possible source of intrinsicpulse-to-pulse variability in the incoherent, high-energy emission pattern. Weused a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation of an orthogonal pulsarmagnetosphere restricted to the plane perpendicular to the star spin axis. Weevolved the solution for several tens of pulsar periods to gather astatistically significant sample of synthetic pulse profiles. The formation ofplasmoids leads to strong pulse-to-pulse variability in the form of multipleshort, bright subpulses, which appear only on the leading edge of each mainpulse. These secondary peaks of emission are dominated by the dozen plasmoidsthat can grow up to macroscopic scales. They emerge from the high end of thehierarchical merging process occurring along the wind current layer. The fluxof the subpulses is correlated with their width in phase. Although thefull-scale separation is not realistic, we argue that the simulation correctlycaptures the demographics and the properties of the largest plasmoids, andtherefore of the brightest subpulses. The prediction of subpulses at specificpulse phases provides a new observational test of the magnetic reconnectionscenario as the origin of the pulsed incoherent emission. High-time-resolutionobservations of the Crab pulsar in the optical range may be the most promisingsource to target for this purpose.

Intra-pulse variability induced by plasmoid formation in pulsar magnetospheres