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 plane as well as the local OB association known as the Gould Belt. We include nine radio surveys to normalize the simulated results from the Galactic plane to the number of radio pulsars observed by these 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 120 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 will discuss recent results of our simulations predicting the numbers of radio-quiet (below threshold of radio surveys) and radio-loud, gamma-ray pulsars from the Galactic plane and the Gould belt observed by EGRET, AGILE and GLAST. Our results suggest that many of the unidentified EGRET sources could be radio-loud and radio-quiet, gamma-ray pulsars that EGRET should have observed as point sources from the Galactic plane and some from 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.