Pulsar motions in our Galaxy

Abstract

Pulsar motions in our Galaxy from their birth until 2 Gyr are studied statistically via Monte-Carlo simulation of $2\times 10^5$ pulsars with the best available representation of the Galactic potential. We find that the distribution of height above the Galactic plane for pulsars with characteristic ages less than about 8 Myr could be well fitted by a Gaussian function. For older pulsars, an extra exponential function is necessary to fit the distribution. The scale-height of the Gaussian component increases linearly with time until about 40 Myr. The height distribution becomes stabilized after about 200 Myr. These results are not sensitive to initial height or radial distributions. Taking the relationship between the initial velocity and height distribution, we found from the latest pulsar catalog that the height distribution of pulsars younger than 1 Myr directly implies the mean initial velocity of $280\pm 96$ km s${}^{-1}$. Comparison of simulated sample of pulsars with the current available millisecond pulsars shows that their 1D initial velocity dispersion should be most probably $60\pm 10$ km s${}^{-1}$.

11 pages, 16 figures, accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (10)

• Rotation Curves of Spiral Galaxies
• The Velocity Distribution of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• The Pulsar Kick Velocity Distribution
• Mass models of the Milky Way
• Neutron Star Population Dynamics.II: 3D Space Velocities of Young Pulsars
• Central Rotation Curves of Spiral Galaxies
• Neutron Star Population Dynamics.I: Millisecond Pulsars
• The spatial distribution of O-B5 stars in the solar neighborhood as measured by Hipparcos
• Millisecond Pulsar Velocities
• Galactic populations of radio and gamma-ray pulsars in the polar cap model

Cited by in corpus (10)

• A statistical study of 233 pulsar proper motions
• Neutron Star Kicks in Isolated and Binary Pulsars: Observational Constraints and Implications for Kick Mechanisms
• Galactic neutron stars I. Space and velocity distributions in the disk and in the halo
• The Origin and Motion of PSR J0538+2817 in S147
• Constraints on the acceleration of the solar system from high-precision timing
• Populating the Galaxy with pulsars -- II. Galactic dynamics
• Constraining Redshifts of Unlocalised Fast Radio Bursts
• Dynamical Monte Carlo Simulations of 3-D Galactic Systems in Axisymmetric and Triaxial Potentials
• Exploring the nature of the unidentified VHE gamma-ray source HESS J1507-622
• Pulsars as Fantastic Objects and Probes