The Galactic population of magnetars : a simulation-based inference study

Abstract

Population synthesis modeling of the observed dynamical and physical properties of a population is a highly effective method for constraining the underlying birth parameters and evolutionary tracks. In this work, we apply a population synthesis model to the canonical magnetar population to gain insight into the parent population. We utilize simulation-based inference to reproduce the observed magnetar population with a model which takes into account the secular evolution of the force-free magnetosphere and magnetic field decay simultaneously and self-consistently. Our observational constraints are such that no magnetar is detected through their persistent emission when convolving the simulated populations with the XMM-Newton EPIC-pn Galactic plane observations, and that all of the $\sim$30 known magnetars are discovered through their bursting activity in the last $\sim 50$ years. Under these constraints, we find that, within 95 % credible intervals, the birth rate of magnetars to be $1.8_{-0.6}^{+2.6}$ kyr${}^{-1}$, and lead to having $10.7_{-4.4}^{+18.8}$ % of neutron stars born as magnetars. We also find a mean magnetic field at birth (${\mu }_b$ is in T) $\log \left({\mu }_b\right)=10.2_{-0.2}^{+0.1}$, a magnetic field decay slope ${\alpha }_d=1.9_{-1.3}^{+0.9}$, and timescale ${\tau }_d=17.9_{-14.5}^{+24.1}$ kyr, in broad agreement with previous estimates. We conclude this study by exploring detection prospects: an all-sky survey with XMM-Newton would potentially allow to get around 7 periodic detections of magnetars, with approximately 150 magnetars exceeding XMM-Newton's flux threshold, and the upcoming AXIS experiment should allow to double these detections.

This paper was submitted to ApJ, the two first authors contributed equally

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• Fast Radio Bursts from non-resonant Alfvén waves and synchrotron maser emission in the magnetar wind
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