hope college public relations    
hope college > public relations > press releases      



Left menu




Default object view. Click to create a custom template, Node ID: 4127, Object ID: 4207

Developing Radio Beam Geometry And Luminosity Models Of Pulsars

Developing Radio Beam Geometry And Luminosity Models Of Pulsars

Sarah A. Story and Brenna M. Giacherio

Dr. Peter L. Gonthier

Physics and Engineering Department

Our recent studies of pulsar population statistics suggest that improvements of radio and gamma-ray beam geometry and luminosity models require further refinement. The polarization properties of radio profiles of gamma-ray pulsars do not suggest that short period pulsars are core dominated, as discussed by the study of Arzoumanian, Chernoff & Cordes (2002). Furthermore, the predicted radio luminosity in this model seems to be too large compared to those required by the simulations. The goal of this project is to constrain the viewing geometry for some radio pulsars, especially three-peaked pulse profiles, in order to limit the uncertainty of the magnetic inclination and impact angles. We perform fits of the pulse profile and position angle sweep of radio pulsars for the available frequencies. We obtain separate spectral indices for the core and cone beams and explore the trends of the ratio of core to cone peak fluxes and luminosities. We will present our current findings and implications