Role of Fan Beam Model in Population Synthesis of Isolated Radio Pulsars

TL;DR

This study introduces a population synthesis model for isolated radio pulsars using a fan beam emission model, successfully matching observed distributions and estimating pulsar counts for future surveys.

Contribution

It develops a novel population synthesis model incorporating the fan beam model, providing improved estimates of pulsar populations and survey yields compared to traditional conal beam models.

Findings

Reproduced observed pulsar distributions accurately.

Estimated over 2 million radio-loud pulsars in the Galaxy.

Predicted detection of about 2,700 and 240 new pulsars by FAST.

Abstract

On the basis of the PSRPOPPY software package, we developed an evolution model of population synthesis for isolated radio pulsars by incorporating the fan beam model, an alternative radio emission beam model to the widely used conal beam model. With proper choice of related models and parameters, we succesfully reproduced the observational distributions of Galactic longitude ($l$) and latitude ($b$), spin period, period derivative, dispersion measure and 1.4-GHz flux density for the 1214 isolated pulsars discovered by the Parkes multibeam and Swinburne pulsar surveys. The number of underlying population of radio-loud pulsars is found to be $2.27\times10^6$, which is larger than the underlying population of radio-loud pulsars simulated with conal beam model. The model is used to estimate the number of isolated radio pulsars detected by the Galactic-plane pulsar survey with Five hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). Approximately 2700 and 240 new isolated pulsars are expected to be discovered in the inner galactic plane ($20^{\circ} < l < 90^{\circ}$, $|b| < 10^{\circ}$) and the outer galactic plane ($150^{\circ} < l < 210^{\circ}$, $|b| < 10^{\circ}$), respectively. These numbers are smaller than those estimated by the evolution models with conal beam and the snapshot models.