Magnetic field decay in single radio pulsars: A statistical study

Authors

Soma MukherjeeFollow
Ajit Kembhavi

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1997

Abstract

We report on an extensive statistical study of single radio pulsar properties, which we undertook to estimate the decay timescale of pulsar magnetic fields. We synthesized a population of pulsars using assumed theoretical distributions of age, initial magnetic field, period of rotation, position, luminosity, and dispersion measure, taking into account the new distance model for pulsars as well as new velocity estimates. We also took into account the selection effects that characterize pulsar observations. We compared the simulated population with the observed single pulsar population using one- and two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to obtain a lower bound of ∼160 Myr on the decay timescale. © 1997. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Comments

© Astrophysical Journal. Original version available at: http://doi.org/10.1086/304798

Recommended Citation

Soma Mukherjee, et. al., (1997) Magnetic field decay in single radio pulsars: A statistical study.Astrophysical Journal489:2928. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1086/304798

First Page

928

Last Page

940

Publication Title

Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.1086/304798