Radio pulsar population synthesis with consistent flux measurements using simulation-based inference

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Araujo, Celsa Pardo, Ronchi, Michele, Graber, Vanessa, Rea, Nanda
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Araujo, Celsa Pardo
Ronchi, Michele
Graber, Vanessa
Rea, Nanda
author_facet Araujo, Celsa Pardo
Ronchi, Michele
Graber, Vanessa
Rea, Nanda
contents The properties of the entire neutron star population can be inferred by modeling their evolution, from birth to the present, through pulsar population synthesis. This involves simulating a mock population, applying observational filters, and comparing the resulting sources to the limited subset of detected pulsars. We specifically focus on the magneto-rotational properties of Galactic isolated neutron stars and provide new insights into the intrinsic radio luminosity law by combining pulsar population synthesis with a simulation-based inference (SBI) technique called truncated sequential neural posterior estimation (TSNPE). We employ TSNPE to train a neural density estimator on simulated pulsar populations to approximate the posterior distribution of the underlying parameters. This technique efficiently explores the parameter space by concentrating on regions that are most likely to match the observed data thus allowing a significant reduction in training dataset size. We demonstrate the efficiency of TSNPE over standard neural posterior estimation (NPE), achieving robust inferences of magneto-rotational parameters consistent with previous studies using only around 4% of the simulations required by NPE approaches. Moreover, for the first time, we incorporate data from the Thousand Pulsar Array (TPA) program on MeerKAT, the largest unified sample of neutron stars with consistent fluxes measurement to date, to help constrain the stars' intrinsic radio luminosity. We find that adding flux information as an input to the neural network largely improves the constraints on the pulsars' radio luminosity, as well as improving the estimates on other input parameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_04070
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Radio pulsar population synthesis with consistent flux measurements using simulation-based inference
Araujo, Celsa Pardo
Ronchi, Michele
Graber, Vanessa
Rea, Nanda
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
The properties of the entire neutron star population can be inferred by modeling their evolution, from birth to the present, through pulsar population synthesis. This involves simulating a mock population, applying observational filters, and comparing the resulting sources to the limited subset of detected pulsars. We specifically focus on the magneto-rotational properties of Galactic isolated neutron stars and provide new insights into the intrinsic radio luminosity law by combining pulsar population synthesis with a simulation-based inference (SBI) technique called truncated sequential neural posterior estimation (TSNPE). We employ TSNPE to train a neural density estimator on simulated pulsar populations to approximate the posterior distribution of the underlying parameters. This technique efficiently explores the parameter space by concentrating on regions that are most likely to match the observed data thus allowing a significant reduction in training dataset size. We demonstrate the efficiency of TSNPE over standard neural posterior estimation (NPE), achieving robust inferences of magneto-rotational parameters consistent with previous studies using only around 4% of the simulations required by NPE approaches. Moreover, for the first time, we incorporate data from the Thousand Pulsar Array (TPA) program on MeerKAT, the largest unified sample of neutron stars with consistent fluxes measurement to date, to help constrain the stars' intrinsic radio luminosity. We find that adding flux information as an input to the neural network largely improves the constraints on the pulsars' radio luminosity, as well as improving the estimates on other input parameters.
title Radio pulsar population synthesis with consistent flux measurements using simulation-based inference
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.04070