Radio-loud and radio-quiet, gamma-ray pulsars from the Galactic plane and the Gould Belt

We present recent results of a population synthesis study in the polar cap model that includes the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey, realistic beam geometries for radio and gamma-ray emission from neutron stars born in the Galactic disc as well as the local Gould Belt. We include nine radio surveys to normalize the simulated results from the Galactic disc to the number of radio pulsars observed by the group of selected surveys. In normalizing the contribution of the Gould Belt, we use results from a recent study that indicates a supernova rate in the Gould Belt of 3 to 5 times that of the local region of the Galactic plane leading to ∼ 100 neutron stars in the Gould Belt during the last 5 Myr. Our simulations include the evolution of the Gould Belt during the past 5 Myr. We discuss the simulated numbers of radio-quiet (below threshold of radio surveys) and radio-loud, gamma-ray pulsars from the Galactic disc and the Gould belt observed by EGRET, AGILE and GLAST. They suggest that about 35 of the unidentified EGRET sources could be (mostly radio-loud) gamma-ray pulsars with 2/3 of them born in the Galactic disc and 1/3 in the Gould Belt. We express our gratitude for the generous support of the Research Corporation (CC5813), of the National Science Foundation (REU and AST-0307365) and the NASA Astrophysics Theory Program.