Orthogonal pulsars as a key test for pulsar evolution

Abstract

At present, there is no direct information about the evolution of inclination angle $\chi$ between magnetic and rotational axes in radio pulsars. As to theoretical models of pulsar evolution, they predict both the alignment, i.e. evolution of inclination angle $\chi$ to $0^{\circ}$, and its counter-alignment, i.e. evolution to $90^{\circ}$. In this paper, we demonstrate that the statistics of interpulse pulsars can give us the key test to solve the alignment/counter-alignment problem as the number of orthogonal interpulse pulsars ($\chi \approx 90^{\circ}$) drastically depends on the evolutionary trajectory.