Population study for gamma-ray pulsars with the outer gap model

TL;DR

This study models the Galactic population of gamma-ray pulsars using the outer gap model and Monte Carlo simulations, predicting detectable numbers and distributions consistent with Fermi observations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive population synthesis of gamma-ray pulsars based on the outer gap model, incorporating recent pair-creation mechanisms and survey sensitivities.

Findings

Predicts 18-23 radio-loud and 26-34 gamma-ray pulsars detectable by current flux thresholds.

Forecasts 40-61 radio-selected and 36-75 gamma-ray pulsars detectable by six-month Fermi data.

Suggests most gamma-ray pulsars are more than 1 kpc away with fluxes around 10^{-11} erg/cm^2 s.

Abstract

Inspired by increase of population of $\gamma$-ray emitting pulsars by the $Fermi$ telescope, we perform a population study for $\gamma$-ray emitting canonical pulsars. We use a Monte-Carlo technique to simulate the Galactic population of neutron stars and the radio pulsars. For each simulated neutron star, we consider the $\gamma$-ray emission from the outer gap accelerator in the magnetosphere. In our outer gap model, we apply the gap closure mechanism proposed by Takata et al., in which both photon-photon pair-creation and magnetic pair-creation processes are considered. Simulating the sensitivities of previous major radio surveys, our simulation predicts that there are $\sim 18-23$ radio loud and $\sim 26-34$ $\gamma$-ray-selected $\gamma$-ray pulsars, which can be detected with a $\gamma$-ray flux $F_{\gamma}\ge 10^{-10}~\mathrm{erg/cm^2 s}$. Applying the sensitivity of the six-month observation of the $Fermi$ telescope, 40-61 radio-selected and 36-75 $\gamma$-ray selected pulsars are detected within our simulation. We show that the distributions of various pulsar parameters for the simulated $\gamma$-ray pulsars can be consistent with the observed distribution of the $\gamma$-ray pulsars detected by the $Fermi$ telescope. We also predict that $\sim 64$ radio-loud and $\sim 340$ $\gamma$-ray-selected pulsars irradiate the Earth with a flux $F_{\gamma}\ge 10^{-11}~\mathrm{erg/cm^2 s}$, and most of those $\gamma$-ray pulsars are distributing with a distance more than 1~kpc and a flux $F_{\gamma}\sim 10^{-11}~\mathrm{erg/cm^2 s}$. The ration between the radio-selected and $\gamma$-ray-selected pulsars depend on the sensitivity of the radio surveys. We also discuss the Galactic distribution of the unidentified $Fermi$ sources and the canonical $\gamma$-ray pulsars.