This award will support an effort to understand the properties of pulsating neutron stars across the electromagnetic spectrum. The research team will create a population synthesis code that will be used to characterize the sample of neutron stars detected by the Fermi satellite and in other surveys. The codes will incorporate treatments of the acceleration/emission geometry, operating radiation mechanisms and population characteristics. The principal goal of this coding effort is to determine how the geometries of the radio and gamma-ray emission are defined and how they evolve with the age of the pulsar.
The project will also provide research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduates from Hope College will engage in collaborative visits at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and make presentations at meetings. The team also outlines plans for outreach and public education. In addition, they will make their codes available to the community via a website that will facilitate comparison between their work and that of other groups.
