Pulsar Simulations for the Fermi Large Area Telescope

TL;DR

This paper introduces detailed simulation tools for gamma-ray pulsars to enhance the analysis capabilities of the Fermi LAT, aiding in understanding pulsar emission mechanisms and optimizing observational strategies.

Contribution

Development of the PulsarSpectrum simulation package that models gamma-ray pulsar emissions, including timing effects and binary systems, for improved LAT data analysis.

Findings

Simulations can generate realistic gamma-ray data for LAT analysis

The tools help evaluate LAT's performance in pulsar observations

Case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the simulation package

Abstract

Pulsars are among the prime targets for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the recently launched Fermi observatory. The LAT will study the gamma-ray Universe between 20 MeV and 300 GeV with unprecedented detail. Increasing numbers of gamma-ray pulsars are being firmly identified, yet their emission mechanisms are far from being understood. To better investigate and exploit the LAT capabilities for pulsar science, a set of new detailed pulsar simulation tools have been developed within the LAT collaboration. The structure of the pulsar simulator package PulsarSpectrum is presented here. Starting from photon distributions in energy and phase obtained from theoretical calculations or phenomenological considerations, gamma rays are generated and their arrival times at the spacecraft are determined by taking into account effects such as barycentric effects and timing noise. Pulsars in binary systems also can be simulated given orbital parameters. We present how simulations can be used for generating a realistic set of gamma rays as observed by the LAT, focusing on some case studies that show the performance of the LAT for pulsar observations.