Statistical ages and the cooling rate of X-ray dim isolated neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper uses population synthesis and luminosity functions to statistically estimate the ages of isolated neutron stars, improving age determination methods crucial for understanding their cooling behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a novel statistical approach to estimate neutron star ages from luminosity data, addressing uncertainties in traditional age measurements.

Findings

Luminosity function can be used to estimate neutron star ages statistically.

Upcoming space telescopes could improve age constraints.

Population synthesis provides a new tool for neutron star age analysis.

Abstract

The cooling theory of neutron stars is corroborated by its comparison with observations of thermally emitting isolated neutron stars and accreting neutron stars in binary systems. An important ingredient for such an analysis is the age of the object, which, typically, is obtained from the spin-down history. This age is highly uncertain if the object's magnetic field varies appreciably over time. Other age estimators, such as supernova remnant ages and kinematic ages, only apply to few handful of neutron stars. We conduct a population synthesis study of the nearby isolated thermal emitters and obtain their ages statistically from the observed luminosity function of these objects. We argue that a more sensitive blind scan of the galactic disk with the upcoming space telescopes can help to constrain the ages to higher accuracy.