Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
Session 84 - Neutron Stars and Their Friends.
Oral session, Thursday, June 13
Historical Society,
Knowledge of the distribution of neutron star birth velocities in the Milky Way is essential not only to Galactic corona models of gamma-ray bursts but also to understanding the intrinsic properties of neutron stars. The recent discovery of very high velocity neutron stars shows that we are far from understanding the shape of this velocity distribution. We investigate this distribution using an approach based on maximum likelihood. We carry out numerical simulations of the evolution of a population of neutron stars in the Galaxy, assuming various models for the distribution of birth velocities. We use these calculations and current data on the properties of rotation-powered pulsars to determine best-fit values and confidence regions for the parameters of these models. We discuss our preliminary results.
