The population of pulsars with interpulses and the implications for beam evolution

Abstract

The observed fraction of pulsars with interpulses, their period distribution and the observed pulse width versus pulse period correlation is shown to be inconsistent with a model in which the angle alpha between the magnetic axis and the rotation axis is random. This conclusion appears to be unavoidable, even when non-circular beams are considered. Allowing the magnetic axis to align from a random distribution at birth with a timescale of 70 Myrs years can, however, explain those observations well. The timescale derived is consistent with that obtained via independent methods. The probability that a pulsar beam intersects the line of sight is a function of the angle alpha and therefore beam evolution has important consequences for evolutionary models and for estimations of the total number of neutron stars. The validity of the standard formula for the spin-down rate, which is independent of alpha appears to be questionable.

7 pages, 2 figures, published in MNRAS. Corrected typo

References in corpus (18)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey: I. Observing and Data Analysis Systems, Discovery and Timing of 100 Pulsars
• The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey: VI. Discovery and timing of 142 pulsars and a Galactic population analysis
• $\gamma$-Ray Pulsars: Emission Zones and Viewing Geometries
• The characteristics of millisecond pulsar emission: I. Spectra, pulse shapes and the beaming fraction
• Why pulsars rotate and move: kicks at birth
• Emission Beam Geometry of Selected Pulsars Derived from Average Pulse Polarization Data
• The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey: III. Young pulsars & the discovery and timing of 200 pulsars
• Evidence for alignment of the rotation and velocity vectors in pulsars
• The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey: IV. Discovery of 180 pulsars and parameters for 281 previously known pulsars
• Strong-Field Tests of Gravity Using Pulsars and Black Holes
• The Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey -- II. Discovery and Timing of 120 Pulsars
• General Relativistic Geodetic Spin Precession in Binary Pulsar B1913+16: Mapping the Emission Beam in Two Dimensions
• Toward An Empirical Theory of Pulsar Emission. VII. On the Spectral Behavior of Conal Beam Radii and Emission Heights
• The Swinburne Intermediate Latitude Pulsar Survey
• Discovery of 14 radio pulsars in a survey of the Magellanic Clouds
• Discovery of 10 pulsars in an Arecibo drift-scan survey

Cited by in corpus (65)

• Binary and Millisecond Pulsars
• An Atlas For Interpreting Gamma-Ray Pulsar Light Curves
• The braking index of PSR J1734-3333 and the magnetar population
• Time evolution of pulsar obliquity angle from 3D simulations of magnetospheres
• Profile and polarization characteristics of energetic pulsars
• Pulsar braking and the P-Pdot diagram
• PsrPopPy: An open-source package for pulsar population simulations
• Population synthesis of isolated Neutron Stars with magneto--rotational evolution
• Polarization observations of 20 millisecond pulsars
• Pulsar Timing with the Parkes Radio Telescope for the Fermi Mission
• The High Time Resolution Universe Pulsar Survey XII : Galactic plane acceleration search and the discovery of 60 pulsars
• Radio pulsars: already fifty years!
• The Crab Pulsar at Centimeter Wavelengths: I. Ensemble Characteristics
• Pulsar magnetic alignment and the pulsewidth-age relation
• Searching a Thousand Radio Pulsars for Gamma-ray Emission
• Constraints on viewing geometries from radio observations of $\gamma$-ray-loud pulsars using a novel method
• Six millisecond pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and the radio/gamma-ray connection of millisecond pulsars
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT XI: Application of the rotating vector model
• On the beam properties of radio pulsars with interpulse emission
• Timing of young radio pulsars II. Braking indices and their interpretation
• Neutron-star spindown and magnetic inclination-angle evolution
• Fermi LAT detection of pulsed gamma-rays from the Vela-like pulsars PSR J1048-5832 and PSR J2229+6114
• Isolated pulsar spin evolution on the P-Pdot Diagram
• On the pulse--width statistics in radio pulsars. I. Importance of the interpulse emission
• Wide radio beams from gamma-ray pulsars
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT: -- VI. Pulse widths of a large and diverse sample of radio pulsars
• The Period-Width relationship for radio pulsars revisited
• The nature of pulsar radio emission
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT IV: Polarisation properties of young, energetic pulsars
• Pulsar Binary Birthrates with Spin-Opening Angle Correlations
• Interaction of misaligned magnetospheres in the coalescence of binary neutron stars
• Investigating the magnetic inclination angle distribution of $\gamma$-ray-loud radio pulsars
• A coherent acceleration search of the Parkes multi-beam pulsar survey - techniques and the discovery and timing of 16 pulsars
• Polarisation measurements of five pulsars with interpulses
• On the Apparent Nulls and Extreme Variability of PSR J1107-5907
• Magnetar birth: rotation rates and gravitational-wave emission
• High-precision geometry of a double-pole pulsar
• Electromagnetic Torques, Precession and Evolution of Magnetic Inclination of Pulsars
• A low frequency study of PSRs B1133+16, B1112+50, and B0031-07
• Inclination angle and braking index evolution of pulsars with plasma-filled magnetosphere: application to high braking index of PSR J1640-4631
• The Galactic population and properties of young, highly-energetic pulsars
• Long-term Observations of Three Nulling Pulsars
• Faraday Rotation in Pulsar Magnetosphere
• Phase-locked modulation delay between the poles of pulsar B1055-52
• Orthogonal pulsars as a key test for pulsar evolution
• Sub-luminous gamma-Ray pulsars
• Braking indices of young radio pulsars: theoretical perspective
• Statistics of interpulse radio pulsars - the key to solving the alignment/counter-alignment problem
• On the mean profiles of radio pulsars II: Reconstruction of complex pulsar light-curves and other new propagation effects
• Revisiting the Galactic Double Neutron Star merger and LIGO detection rates
• Radio pulsar populations
• Pulsar current revisited
• A short review of the pulsar magnetic inclination angles (II)
• Refinement of the timing-based estimator of pulsar magnetic fields
• The Curious Case of Twin Fast Radio Bursts: Evidence for Neutron Star Origin?
• The Galactic population of magnetars : a simulation-based inference study
• Observability of pulsar beam bending by the Sgr~A* black hole
• Role of Fan Beam Model in Population Synthesis of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• Beyond the 2nd Fermi Pulsar Catalog
• Imprint of magnetic obliquity in apparent spin-down of radio pulsars
• Search for interpulses in a complete sample of pulsars at a frequency of 111 MHz
• Application of a two dipole model to PSR J1640-4631, a pulsar with an anomalous braking index
• Pulsar Population Synthesis with Magnetorotational Evolution: Constraining the Decay of Magnetic field
• Transient Radio Neutron Stars
• Pulsar Observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope