Bibcode
DOI
Gonthier, Peter L.; Ouellette, Michelle S.; Berrier, Joel; O'Brien, Shawn; Harding, Alice K.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 565, Issue 1, pp. 482-499.
Advertised on:
1
2002
Journal
Citations
75
Refereed citations
63
Description
We simulate the characteristics of the Galactic population of radio and
γ-ray pulsars using Monte Carlo techniques. At birth, neutron
stars are spatially distributed in the Galactic disk, with
supernova-kick velocities, and randomly dispersed in age back to
109 yr. 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.
γ-ray luminosities are assigned using the features of recent polar
cap acceleration models invoking space-charge-limited flow, and a pulsar
death valley further attenuates the population of radio-loud pulsars.
Assuming a simple emission geometry with aligned radio and γ-ray
beams of 1 sr solid angle, our model predicts that EGRET should have
seen seven radio-loud and one radio-quiet γ-ray pulsars. With much
improved sensitivity, GLAST, on the other hand, is expected to observe
76 radio-loud and 74 radio-quiet γ-ray pulsars, of which seven
would be identified as pulsed sources. We also explore the effect of
magnetic field decay on the characteristics of the radio and γ-ray
pulsar populations. Including magnetic field decay on a timescale of 5
Myr improves agreement with the radio pulsar population and increases
the predicted number of GLAST-detected pulsars to 90 radio-loud and 101
radio-quiet (nine pulsed) γ-ray pulsars. The lower flux threshold
allows GLAST to detect γ-ray pulsars at larger distances than
those observed by the radio surveys used in this study.