The observed velocity distribution of young pulsars

Abstract

We argue that comparison with observations of theoretical models for the velocity distribution of pulsars must be done directly with the observed quantities, i.e. parallax and the two components of proper motion. We develop a formalism to do so, and apply it to pulsars with accurate VLBI measurements. We find that a distribution with two maxwellians improves significantly on a single maxwellian. The `mixed' model takes into account that pulsars move away from their place of birth, a narrow region around the galactic plane. The best model has 42% of the pulsars in a maxwellian with average velocity sigma sqrt{8/pi}=120 km/s, and 58% in a maxwellian with average velocity 540 km/s. About 5% of the pulsars has a velocity at birth less than 60\,km/s. For the youngest pulsars (tau_c<10 Myr), these numbers are 32% with 130 km/s, 68% with 520 km/s, and 3%, with appreciable uncertainties.

submitted to A&A; 14 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• On Pulsar Distance Measurements and their Uncertainties
• Pulsar Parallaxes at 5 GHz with the Very Long Baseline Array
• Revisiting the birth locations of pulsars B1929+10, B2020+28,and B2021+51
• A new look at distances and velocities of neutron stars

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Simple recipes for compact remnant masses and natal kicks
• On the Progenitor of Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817
• Detecting Double Neutron Stars with LISA
• Core-Collapse Supernovae in Binaries as the Origin of Galactic Hyper-Runaway Stars
• On the origin of jet-like features in bow shock pulsar wind nebulae
• Full-3D relativistic MHD simulations of Bow Shock Pulsar Wind Nebulae: dynamics
• Candidate radio supernova remnants observed by the GLEAM survey over $345^{\circ }<l<60^{\circ }$ and $180^{\circ }<l<240^{\circ }$
• Can supernova kicks trigger EMRIs in the Galactic Centre?
• Wide binary companions to massive stars and their use in constraining natal kicks
• New candidate radio supernova remnants detected in the GLEAM survey over $345^{\circ }<l<60^{\circ }$, $180^{\circ }<l<240^{\circ }$
• Radio study of the extended TeV source VER J1907+062
• The Tail of PSR J0002+6216 and the Supernova Remnant CTB 1
• Tracking the footprints of the radio pulsar B1727$-$47: proper motion, host supernova remnant, and the glitches
• The nature of the infrared counterpart and of the optical nebula associated with the Central Compact Object in Vela Jr.\
• The dynamics of Galactic centre pulsars: constraining pulsar distances and intrinsic spin-down
• New composite supernova remnant toward HESS J1844-030?
• Kinematic distinction of the two subpopulations of X-ray pulsars
• Detectability of neutron star -- white dwarf coalescences by eROSITA and ART-XC