The needle in the haystack - Where to look for more isolated cooling neutron stars

Abstract

Context: Isolated cooling neutron stars with thermal X-ray emission remain rarely detected objects despite many searches investigating the ROSAT data. Aims: We simulate the population of close-by young cooling neutron stars to explain the current observational results. Given the inhomogeneity of the neutron star distribution on the sky it is particularly interesting to identify promising sky regions with respect to on-going and future searches. Methods: Applying a population synthesis model the inhomogeneity of the progenitor distribution and the inhomogeneity of the X-ray absorbing interstellar medium are considered for the first time. The total number of observable neutron stars is derived with respect to ROSAT count rates. In addition, we present sky maps of neutron star locations and discuss age and distance distributions of the simulated neutron stars. Implications for future searches are discussed. Results: With our advanced model we can successfully explain the observed logN - logS distribution of close-by neutron stars. Cooling neutron stars will be most abundant in the directions of rich OB associations. New candidates are expected to be identified behind the Gould Belt, in particular in the Cygnus-Cepheus region. They are expected to be on average younger and then hotter than the known population of isolated cooling neutron stars. In addition, we propose to use data on runaway stars to search for more radio-quiet cooling neutron stars.

18 pages, 14 figures; added Erratum after bug in code was discovered, updated results in Appendix, main conclusions do not change

References in corpus (15)

• Birth and Evolution of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• The Magnificent Seven: Magnetic fields and surface temperature distributions
• Dense Matter in Compact Stars: Theoretical Developments and Observational Constraints
• Cooling of Neutron Stars. Hadronic Model
• The impact of magnetic field on the thermal evolution of neutron stars
• Evidence for precession of the isolated neutron star RX J0720.4-3125
• Hypervelocity Stars II. The Bound Population
• A Survey of 56 Mid-latitude EGRET Error Boxes for Radio Pulsars
• The Magnificent Seven in the dusty prairie -- The role of interstellar absorption on the observed neutron star population
• Discovery of an Isolated Compact Object at High Galactic Latitude
• Cooling of Neutron Stars with Strong Toroidal Magnetic Fields
• The Geminga Fraction
• Population statistics study of radio and gamma-ray pulsars in the Galactic plane
• Measuring proper motions of isolated neutron stars with Chandra
• A Strong Upper Limit on the Pulsed Radio Luminosity of the Compact Object 1RXS J141256.0+792204

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Cyclotron lines in highly magnetized neutron stars
• On the birthrates of Galactic neutron stars
• Black Hole, Neutron Star and White Dwarf Candidates from Microlensing with OGLE-III
• Population synthesis studies of isolated neutron stars with magnetic field decay
• Further Searches for RRATs in the Parkes Multi-Beam Pulsar Survey
• Statistical theory of thermal evolution of neutron stars - II. Limitations on direct Urca threshold
• XMM-Newton Observations of Radio Pulsars B0834+06 and B0826-34 and Implications for Pulsar Inner Accelerator
• On the accuracy of mass measurement for microlensing black holes as seen by Gaia and OGLE
• Polarized thermal emission from X-ray Dim Isolated Neutron Stars: the case of RX J1856.5-3754
• Proper motions of thermally emitting isolated neutron stars measured with Chandra
• The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts IV: Discovery and polarimetry of a 12.1-second radio pulsar
• Cassiopeia A and direct URCA cooling
• The isolated neutron star candidate 2XMM J104608.7-594306
• XMM-Newton reveals a candidate period for the spin of the "Magnificent Seven" neutron star RX J1605.3+3249
• Evolution of isolated neutron stars till accretion. The role of initial magnetic field
• XMM-Newton observation of the very old pulsar J0108-1431
• A search for thermally emitting isolated neutron stars in the 2XMMp catalogue
• The peculiar isolated neutron star in the Carina Nebula - Deep XMM-Newton and ESO-VLT observations of 2XMM J104608.7-594306
• Settling accretion on to isolated neutron stars from interstellar medium
• Candidate isolated neutron stars in the 4XMM-DR10 catalog of X-ray sources
• Hubble Space Telescope observations of the old pulsar PSR J0108-1431
• Deep optical observations of unusual neutron star Calvera with the GTC
• A Limit on the Number of Isolated Neutron Stars Detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey Bright Source Catalog
• No Confirmed New Isolated Neutron Stars In The SDSS Data Release 4
• Is there a compact companion orbiting the late O-type binary star HD 164816?
• Supernova explosions of runaway stars and young neutron stars above the Galactic plane
• A web-tool for population synthesis of near-by cooling neutron stars: An on-line test for cooling curves