The observed velocity distribution of young pulsars

Verbunt, F.; Igoshev, Andrei P.; Cator, Eric

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201731518

Cited by 180 publications

(188 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The initial eccentricity values are selected from a thermal distribution (Heggie 1975) ranging between zero and one. The natal NS kick velocity distribution is modelled by Verbunt et al (2017), a combination of two Maxwellians with a mean of 75 km s -1 and 316 km s -1 . For the birth NS spin period, we assume a normal distribution with a mean of 300 ms and a standard deviation of 150 ms (Faucher-Giguère & Kaspi 2006), while the birth magnetic field in units of G is drawn from a lognormal distribution with a mean and standard deviation of 12.65 and 0.55 respectively (Faucher-Giguère & Kaspi 2006).…”

Section: Initial Conditions Of Default Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

The radio pulsar population of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Titus

Toonen

McBride

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We model the present day, observable, normal radio pulsar population of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The pulsars are generated with SeBa, a binary population synthesis code that evolves binaries and the constituent stellar objects up to remnant formation and beyond. We define radio pulsars by selecting neutron stars that satisfy a selection of criteria defined by Galactic pulsars, and apply the detection thresholds of previous and future SMC pulsar surveys. The number of synthesised and recovered pulsars are exceptionally sensitive to the assumed star formation history and applied radio luminosity model, but is not affected extensively by the assumed common envelope model, metallicity, and neutron star kick velocity distribution. We estimate that the SMC formed (1.6 ± 0.3) ×10 4 normal pulsars during the last 100 Myrs. We study which pulsars could have been observed by the Parkes multibeam survey of the SMC, by applying the survey's specific selection effects, and recover 4.0 ± 0.8 synthetic pulsars. This is in agreement with their five observed pulsars. We also apply a proposed MeerKAT configuration for the upcoming SMC survey, and predict that the MeerKAT survey will detect 17.2 ± 2.5 pulsars.

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Section: Initial Conditions Of Default Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

The radio pulsar population of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Titus

Toonen

McBride

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…One of the well-known ideas to constrain the natal kick velocity distribution is to analyse the parallaxes and proper motions of young isolated radio pulsars, see e.g. Arzoumanian, Chernoff & Cordes (2002) and Verbunt, Igoshev & Cator (2017). analysed a small sample containing 28 pulsars (19 pulsars with spin-down age less than 10 Myr).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The observed velocity distribution of young pulsars – II. Analysis of complete PSRπ

Igoshev

2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Understanding the natal kicks, or birth velocities, of neutron stars are essential for understanding the evolution of massive binaries as well as double neutron star formation. We use maximum likelihood methods as published in Verbunt et al. to analyse a new large dataset of parallaxes and proper motions measured by Deller et al. This sample is roughly three times larger than number of measurements available before. For both the complete sample and its younger part (spin-down ages τ < 3 Myr), we find that a bimodal Maxwellian distribution describes the measured parallaxes and proper motions better than a single Maxwellian with probability of 99.3 and 95.0 per cent respectively. The bimodal Maxwellian distribution has three parameters: fraction of low-velocity pulsars and distribution parameters σ 1 and σ 2 for low and high-velocity modes. For a complete sample, these parameters are as follows: 42 +17 −15 per cent, σ 1 = 128 +22 −18 km s −1 and σ 2 = 298 ± 28 km s −1 . For younger pulsars, which are assumed to represent the natal kick, these parameters are as follows: 20 +11 −10 per cent, σ 1 = 56 +25 −15 km s −1 and σ 2 = 336 ± 45 km s −1 . In the young population, 5 ± 3 per cent of pulsars has velocities less than 60 km s −1 . We perform multiple Monte Carlo tests for the method taking into account realistic observational selection. We find that the method reliably estimates all parameters of the natal kick distribution. Results of the velocity analysis are weakly sensitive to the exact values of scale-lengths of the Galactic pulsar distribution.

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“…This suggests that the fraction of low velocities is underestimated by the analysis of Hobbs et al (2005). Remarkably, this original argument for the velocity study of Verbunt et al (2017) was rather weakened when the accurate proper motion data for 28 pulsars were collected. Not a single new one with v ⊥ < 40 km/s was added!…”

Section: Velocity From Timing and Dispersion Measurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To determine the best value of σ for the complete set of 28 pulsars, Verbunt et al (2017) first computed L maxw (σ ) according to equation (16) for each of them, integrating numerically over D. From these likelihoods, the deviance is computed as…”

Section: Description With a Single Maxwellianmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A New Look at Distances and Velocities of Neutron Stars

Verbunt

Cator

2017

J Astrophys Astron

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Abstract. We take a fresh look at the determination of distances and velocities of neutron stars. The conversion of a parallax measurement into a distance, or distance probability distribution, has led to a debate quite similar to the one involving Cepheids, centering on the question whether priors can be used when discussing a single system. With the example of PSR J0218+4232, we show that a prior is necessary to determine the probability distribution for the distance. The distance of this pulsar implies a gamma-ray luminosity larger than 10% of its spindown luminosity. For velocities, the debate is whether a single Maxwellian describes the distribution for young pulsars. By limiting our discussion to accurate (VLBI) measurements we argue that a description with two Maxwellians, with distribution parameters σ 1 = 77 and σ 2 = 320 km/s, is significantly better. Corrections for galactic rotation, to derive velocities with respect to the local standards of rest, are insignificant.

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The observed velocity distribution of young pulsars

Cited by 180 publications

References 27 publications

The radio pulsar population of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The radio pulsar population of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The observed velocity distribution of young pulsars – II. Analysis of complete PSRπ

A New Look at Distances and Velocities of Neutron Stars

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