The luminosity function of cluster pulsars

Abstract

We study luminosities of millisecond pulsars in globular clusters by fitting the observed luminosity distribution with single and double power laws. We use simulations to model the observed distribution as the brighter part of some parent distribution for Terzan 5 and try to find a model which simultaneously agrees with the observed diffuse radio flux, total predicted number of pulsars and observed luminosity distribution. We find that wide ranges of parameters for log-normal and power-law distributions give such good models. No clear difference between the luminosity distributions of millisecond pulsars in globular clusters and normal disk pulsars was seen.