Geometric modelling of radio and gamma-ray light curves of 6 Fermi LAT pulsars

A. S. Seyffert, C. Venter, O. C. de Jager, A. K. Harding

Published 2011-05-20Version 1

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has recently reported the detection of pulsed gamma-rays from 6 young pulsars (J0631+1036, J0659+1414, J0742-2822, J1420-6048, J1509-5850, and J1718-3825), all exhibiting single-peaked pulse profiles (Weltevrede et al., 2010). High-quality radio polarization data are also available for 5 of these pulsars, allowing derivation of constraints on their viewing geometries. We obtain independent constraints on the viewing geometries of these pulsars by using a geometric pulsar emission code to model the Fermi LAT and radio light curves. We find fits for the magnetic inclination and observer angles alpha and zeta with typical errors of ~ 5deg. Our results are generally consistent with those obtained by Weltevrede et al. (2010), although we do find differences in some cases. Our model may lastly provide a framework to constrain the radio emission altitude.