Populating the Galaxy with pulsars -- II. Galactic dynamics

Abstract

We produce synthetic populations of pulsars within our Galaxy and calculate the resulting scale heights as well as the radial and space velocity distributions of the pulsars. Results are presented for isolated pulsars, binary pulsars and millisecond pulsars. We also test the robustness of the outcomes to variations in the assumed form of the Galactic potential, the birth distribution of binary positions, and the strength of the velocity kick given to neutron stars at birth. We find that isolated pulsars have a greater scale height than binary pulsars. This is also true when restricted to millisecond pulsars unless we allow for low-mass stars to be ablated by radiation from their pulsar companion in which case the isolated and binary scale heights are comparable. Double neutron stars are found to have a large variety of space velocities, in particular, some systems have speeds similar to the Sun. We look in detail at the predicted Galactic population of millisecond pulsars with black hole companions, including their formation pathways, and show where the short-period systems reside in the Galaxy. Some of our population predictions are compared in a limited way to observations but the full potential of this aspect will be realised in the near future when we complete our population synthesis code with the selection effects component.

25 pages, 12 figures, accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (65)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Evolution of binary stars and the effect of tides on binary populations
• Comprehensive analytic formulae for stellar evolution as a function of mass and metallicity
• A statistical study of 233 pulsar proper motions
• Tests of general relativity from timing the double pulsar
• A Comprehensive Study of Binary Compact Objects as Gravitational Wave Sources: Evolutionary Channels, Rates, and Physical Properties
• An increased estimate of the merger rate of double neutron stars from observations of a highly relativistic system
• A Double-Pulsar System - A Rare Laboratory for Relativistic Gravity and Plasma Physics
• Compact Object Modeling with the StarTrack Population Synthesis Code
• Thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
• Birth and Evolution of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• The Milky Way's Circular Velocity Curve to 60 kpc and an Estimate of the Dark Matter Halo Mass from Kinematics of ~2400 SDSS Blue Horizontal Branch Stars
• The RAVE Survey: Constraining the Local Galactic Escape Speed
• The Observed Offset Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts from Their Host Galaxies: A Robust Clue to the Nature of the Progenitors
• The Velocity Distribution of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• Explosions of O-Ne-Mg Cores, the Crab Supernova, and Subluminous Type II-P Supernovae
• Theoretical Black Hole Mass Distributions
• The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey: VI. Discovery and timing of 142 pulsars and a Galactic population analysis
• The Effects of Binary Evolution on the Dynamics of Core Collapse and Neutron-Star Kicks
• The SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline. I. Description and Initial Validation Tests
• Catalogue of high-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy ($4^{th}$ edition)
• The Pulsar Kick Velocity Distribution
• Mass models of the Milky Way
• A catalogue of low-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy, LMC, and SMC (Fourth edition)
• On the formation and evolution of black-hole binaries
• The Milky Way in X-rays for an outside observer: Log(N)-Log(S) and Luminosity Function of X-ray binaries from RXTE/ASM data
• The distances to Galactic low-mass X-ray binaries: consequences for black hole luminosities and kicks
• Formation and evolution of compact binaries in globular clusters: II. Binaries with neutron stars
• Galactic distribution of merging neutron stars and black holes - prospects for short GRB progenitors and LIGO/VIRGO
• Arecibo Pulsar Survey Using ALFA. I. Survey Strategy and First Discoveries
• Multi-Dimensional Simulations of the Accretion-Induced Collapse of White Dwarfs to Neutron Stars
• The Origin of Massive O-type Field Stars. Part II: Field O stars as runaways
• Orbital Characteristics of Binary Systems after Asymmetric Supernova Explosions
• Determination of the geometry of the PSR B1913+16 system by geodetic precession
• Revisiting the radial distribution of pulsars in the Galaxy
• Formation of Double Compact Objects
• The Galactic Population of Low- and Intermediate-Mass X-ray Binaries
• The bottom magnetic field and magnetosphere evolution of neutron star in low mass X-ray binary
• Spatial distribution of Galactic HII regions
• Populating the Galaxy with low-mass X-ray binaries
• Constraining population synthesis models via empirical binary compact object merger and supernovae rates
• Milky Way potentials in CDM and MOND. Is the Large Magellanic Cloud on a bound orbit?
• Orbital eccentricities of binary systems with a former AGB star
• Study of Gamma Ray Burst Binary Progenitors
• The White Dwarf Deficit in Open Clusters: Dynamical Processes
• Populating the Galaxy with pulsars I: stellar & binary evolution
• Implications of a VLBI Distance to the Double Pulsar J0737-3039A/B
• Relativistic Binary Pulsars with Black-Hole Companions
• Mergers of Black Hole -- Neutron Star binaries. I. Methods and First Results
• The birth properties of Galactic millisecond radio pulsars
• Population synthesis of wide binary millisecond pulsars
• The spin period - eccentricity relation of double neutron stars: evidence for weak supernova kicks?
• The Parallax and Proper Motion of PSR J0030+0451
• Timing the Eccentric Binary Millisecond Pulsar in NGC 1851
• On the Radial Distribution of White Dwarfs in the Globular Cluster NGC 6397
• Pulsar motions in our Galaxy
• XMM-Newton Observations of PSR B1957+20
• How is Binary Radio-Pulsars with Black Holes Population Rich?
• Spatial distribution of luminous X-ray binaries in spiral galaxies
• Orbital evolution with white-dwarf kicks
• PSR J1453+1902 and the radio luminosities of solitary versus binary millisecond pulsars
• Long Gamma-Ray Bursts and the Morphology of their Host Galaxies
• A new search strategy for microquasar candidates using NVSS/2MASS and XMM-Newton data

Cited by in corpus (31)

• Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters: Masses, Merger Rates, and the Impact of Stellar Evolution
• Merging black hole binaries in galactic nuclei: implications for advanced-LIGO detections
• PINT: A Modern Software Package for Pulsar Timing
• Galactic neutron stars I. Space and velocity distributions in the disk and in the halo
• Millisecond Pulsars and Black Holes in Globular Clusters
• LISA sources in Milky Way globular clusters
• Modelling Neutron Star-Black Hole Binaries: Future Pulsar Surveys and Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Population synthesis of double neutron stars
• Accreting black hole binaries in globular clusters
• Tidal Disruptions of Stars by Black Hole Remnants in Dense Star Clusters
• On the detectability of eccentric binary pulsars
• Great Balls of FIRE II: The evolution and destruction of star clusters across cosmic time in a Milky Way-mass galaxy
• Eight Millisecond Pulsars Discovered in the Arecibo PALFA Survey
• Markov chain Monte Carlo population synthesis of single radio pulsars in the Galaxy
• Neutron Star Physics in the Square Kilometer Array Era : An Indian Perspective
• Black Holes In Young Stellar Clusters
• Assessing the complexity of orbital parameters after asymmetric kick in binary pulsars
• On the displacement of X-ray binaries from star clusters in star-burst galaxies
• Lower-mass-gap Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters
• The double degenerate LP400-22 revisited
• Deceleration of kicked objects due to the Galactic potential
• Analyzing the Galactic pulsar distribution with machine learning
• Probing the Accretion Induced Collapse of White Dwarfs in Millisecond Pulsars
• Search for Pairs of Isolated Radio Pulsars - Components in Disrupted Binary Systems
• Single Millisecond Pulsars from Dynamical Interaction Processes in Dense Star Clusters
• A kinematically constrained kick distribution for isolated neutron stars
• In what sense a neutron star-black hole binary is the holy grail for testing gravity?
• Periastron Advance in Neutron Star - Black Hole Binaries
• Detailed study of detection method for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves with pulsar spin-down rate statistics
• A study of the light bending phenomenon under full general relativity for a pulsar in a binary with a Schwarzschild black hole
• Constraining Black Hole Natal Kicks with Astrometric Microlensing