Bibcode
Gonthier, Peter L.; Ouellette, Michelle S.; O'Brien, Shawn; Berrier, Joel; Harding, Alice K.
Bibliographical reference
GAMMA 2001: Gamma-Ray Astrophysics 2001. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 587, pp. 580-584 (2001).
Advertised on:
10
2001
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We simulate the characteristics of the Galactic population of radio and
gamma-ray pulsars using Monte Carlo techniques. At birth, neutron stars
are spatially distributed with supernova-kick velocities in the Galactic
disk and randomly dispersed in age over the past 109 years.
From their birth location, the neutron stars are evolved in the Galactic
gravitational potential to the present time. With a radio luminosity
model, we estimate the radio flux and filter each pulsar through a
selected set of radio-survey parameters determining a flux threshold.
Using the features of recent polar cap acceleration models invoking
space-charge-limited flow, a pulsar death region further attenuates the
population of radio-loud pulsars, and gamma-ray luminosities are
assigned. Assuming a featureless emission geometry of 1 steradian and
with an alignment of the radio and gamma-ray beams, and for the case of
no field decay and a death valley, our model predicts that EGRET should
have seen 10 radio loud and 2 radio quiet, gamma-ray pulsars. GLAST, on
the other hand, is expected to observe 93 radio-loud and 87 radio-quiet,
gamma-ray pulsars of which 8 are expected to be identified as pulsed
sources. .