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Figure 1:
Venn diagram showing the numbers and locations of the various types of radio pulsars known as of January 2005. The large and small Magellanic clouds are denoted by LMC and SMC. |
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Figure 2:
GIF movie showing the rotating neutron star (or “lighthouse”) model for pulsar emission. Animation designed by Michael Kramer. |
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Figure 3:
The ![]() |
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Figure 4:
A variety of integrated pulse profiles taken from the available literature. References: Panels a, b, d, f [107], Panel c [23], Panels e, g, i [165], Panel h [29]. Each profile represents 360 degrees of rotational phase. These profiles are freely available from an on-line database [327]. |
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Figure 5:
Phenomenological models for pulse shape morphology produced by different line-of-sight cuts of the beam. Figure designed by Michael Kramer. |
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Figure 6:
The sky distribution of pulsars in Galactic coordinates. The plane of the Galaxy is the central horizontal line. The Galactic centre is the midpoint of this line. Millisecond pulsars are indicated in red. Binary pulsars are highlighted by the open circles. The more isotropic distribution of the millisecond and binary pulsars reflects the differences in detecting them out to large distances cf. the normal population (see Section 3). |
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Figure 7:
Cartoon showing various evolutionary scenarios involving binary pulsars. |
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Figure 8:
Eccentricity versus orbital period for a sample of 21 low-mass binary pulsars which are not in globular clusters, with the triangles denoting three recently discovered systems [294]. The solid line shows the median of the predicted relationship between orbital period and eccentricity [249]. Dashed lines show 95% the confidence limit about this relationship. The dotted line shows ![]() |
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Figure 9:
Companion mass versus orbital period for binary pulsars showing the whole sample where, in the absence of mass determinations, statistical arguments based on a random distribution of orbital inclination angles (see Section 4.4) have been used to constrain the masses as shown (Panel a), and only those with well determined companion masses (Panel b). The dashed lines show the uncertainties in the predicted relation [307]. This relationship indicates that as these systems finished a period of stable mass transfer due to Roche-lobe overflow, the size and hence period of the orbit was determined by the mass of the evolved secondary star. Figure provided by Marten van Kerkwijk [330]. |
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Figure 10:
GIF movie showing a simulation following the motion of 100 pulsars in a model gravitational potential of our Galaxy for ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 11:
Left panel: The current sample of all known radio pulsars projected onto the Galactic plane. The Galactic centre is at the origin and the Sun is at ![]() |
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Figure 12:
Left panel: Pulse scattering caused by irregularities in the interstellar medium. The different path lengths and travel times of the scattered rays result in a “scattering tail” in the observed pulse profile which lowers its signal-to-noise ratio. Right panel: A simulation showing the percentage of Galactic pulsars that are likely to be undetectable due to scattering as a function of observing frequency. Low-frequency ( ![]() |
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Figure 13:
Left panel: A ![]() |
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Figure 14:
Dynamic power spectra showing two recent pulsar discoveries in the globular cluster M62 showing fluctuation frequency as a function of time. Figure provided by Adam Chandler. |
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Figure 15:
Small-number bias of the scale factor estimates derived from a synthetic population of sources where the true number of sources is known. Left panel: An edge-on view of a model Galactic source population. Right panel: The thick line shows ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 16:
Beaming fraction plotted against pulse period for four different beaming models: Narayan & Vivekanand 1983 (NV83) [223], Lyne & Manchester 1988 (LM88) [202], Biggs 1990 (JDB90) [34] and Tauris & Manchester 1998 (TM88) [306]. |
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Figure 17:
Left panel: The corrected luminosity distribution (solid histogram with error bars) for normal pulsars. The corrected distribution before the beaming model has been applied is shown by the dot-dashed line. Right panel: The corresponding distribution for millisecond pulsars. In both cases, the observed distribution is shown by the dashed line and the thick solid line is a power law with a slope of ![]() |
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Figure 18:
The relativistic binary merging plane. Top: Orbital eccentricity versus period for eccentric binary systems involving neutron stars. Bottom: Orbital period distribution for the massive white dwarf-pulsar binaries. |
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Figure 19:
The current best empirical estimates of the coalescence rates of relativistic binaries involving neutron stars. The individual contributions from each known binary system are shown as dashed lines, while the solid line shows the total probability density function on a logarithmic and (inset) linear scale. The left panel shows DNS binaries [147, 148], while the right panel shows the equivalent results for NS-WD binaries [157]. |
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Figure 20:
Schematic showing the main stages involved in pulsar timing observations. |
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Figure 21:
A ![]() |
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Figure 22:
Timing model residuals for PSR B1133+16. Panel a: Residuals obtained from the best-fitting model which includes period, period derivative, position and proper motion. Panel b: Residuals obtained when the period derivative term is set to zero. Panel c: Residuals showing the effect of a ![]() |
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Figure 23:
Examples of timing residuals for a number of normal pulsars. Note the varying scale on the ordinate axis, the pulsars being ranked in increasing order of timing “activity”. Data taken from the Jodrell Bank timing program [281, 124]. Figure provided by Andrew Lyne. |
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Figure 24:
The fractional stability of three millisecond pulsars compared to an atomic clock. Both PSRs B1855+09 and B1937+21 are comparable, or just slightly worse than, the atomic clock behaviour over timescales of a few years [214]. More recent timing of the millisecond pulsar J0437 ![]() |
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Figure 25:
Panel a: Keplerian orbital fit to the ![]() |
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Figure 26:
Orbital decay in the binary pulsar B1913+16 system demonstrated as an increasing orbital phase shift for periastron passages with time. The GR prediction due entirely to the emission of gravitational radiation is shown by the parabola. Figure provided by Joel Weisberg [336]. |
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Figure 27:
‘Mass-mass’ diagram showing the observational constraints on the masses of the neutron stars in the double pulsar system J0737 ![]() |
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Figure 28:
Distribution of neutron star masses as inferred from timing observations of binary pulsars [292]. The vertical dotted line shows the canonical neutron star mass of ![]() |
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Figure 29:
Top panel: Observed timing residuals for PSR B1855+09. Bottom panel: Simulated timing residuals induced from a putative black hole binary in 3C66B. Figure provided by Rick Jenet [135]. |
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Figure 30:
Summary of the gravitational wave spectrum showing the location in phase space of the pulsar timing array (PTA) and its extension with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Figure updated by Michael Kramer [162] from an original design by Richard Battye. |
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