Galactic population of radio and gamma-ray pulsars

Gonthier, Peter L.; Ouellette, Michelle S.; O'Brien, Shawn; Berrier, Joel; Harding, Alice K.
Bibliographical reference

RELATIVISTIC ASTROPHYSICS: 20th Texas Symposium. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 586, pp. 547-549 (2001).

Advertised on:
10
2001
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
0
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 back to 109 years. They are evolved in the Galactic gravitational potential to the present time. From a radio luminosity model, the radio flux is filtered through a selected set of radio-survey parameters. 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 corresponding to an alignment of the radio and gamma-ray beams, our model predicts that EGRET should have seen 17 radio loud and 5 radio quiet, gamma-ray pulsars. GLAST, on the other hand, is expected to observe 132 radio loud and 212 radio quiet, gamma-ray pulsars of which 21 are expected to be identified as pulsed sources. .