Pulsar death line revisited - II. 'The death valley'

In this paper, which is the second in a series of papers, we analyse what parameters can determine the width of the radio pulsar 'death valley' in the P-(P) over dot diagram. Using exact expression for the maximum potential drop, which can be realized over magnetic polar caps and the corresponding threshold for the secondary plasma production determined in Paper I, we analyse in detail the observed distribution of pulsars taking into account all the possible parameters (radius R and moment of inertia of a neutron star I-r, high-energy tail in the gamma-quanta energy distribution giving rise to secondary particles, etc.) which could broaden 'the death line'. We show that the consistent allowance for all these effects leads to a sufficiently wide of 'the death valley' containing all the observed pulsars even for dipole magnetic field of a neutron star. We emphasize that the main goal of this work is to demonstrate that the original Ruderman-Sutherland idea of the death line (dipole magnetic field, vacuum gap) is in good agreement with observations. The comparison with other models is beyond the scope of this paper.

Automated summary

This paper analyzes the parameters determining the width of the radio pulsar 'death valley' and demonstrates the agreement between the observed distribution of pulsars and the Ruderman-Sutherland theory.