  Contopoulos 2019 proposed that a dissipation zone develops in the
magnetosphere of young pulsars at the edge of the closed-line region beyond the
light cylinder. This is necessary in order to supply the charge carriers that
will establish current closure through the equatorial and separatrix
current-sheets. In the present work, we propose to investigate in greater
detail this region with a simplified model that we would like to call the
`ring-of-fire'. According to this simple model, the dissipation zone is a
narrow reconnection layer where electrons and positrons are accelerated inwards
and outwards respectively along Speiser orbits that are deflected in the
azimuthal direction by the pulsar rotation. After they exit the reconnection
layer, the accelerated positrons form the positively charged equatorial
current-sheet, and the accelerated electrons form the negatively charged
separatrix current-sheet along the boundary of the closed-line region. During
their acceleration, particles lose only a small part of their energy to
radiation. Most of their energy is lost outside the dissipation region, in the
equatorial and separatrix current sheets. Our simple model allows us to obtain
high-energy spectra and efficiencies. The radiation emitted by the positrons in
the equatorial current-sheet forms a very-high energy tail that extends up to
the TeV range.
