Gamma-ray Pulsar Simulations for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST)

Abstract

We present here the current status of pulsar simulations for the Large Area Telescope, the main instrument on the GLAST mission. We present "PulsarSpectrum", a pulsar simulator that can reproduce with high detail gamma-ray emission from pulsars. "PulsarSpectrum" takes into account advanced timing effects, e.g. period changes with time, barycentering effects and glitches. Other ancillary tools have been built to provide the simulator with a realistic population of pulsars and their ephemerides. All these tools are currently used in the GLAST collaboration for testing the LAT Science Analysis Tools and for studying LAT capabilities for pulsar science. They have been used also for generating a simulated pulsar population for the "Data Challenge 2 (DC2)", one of the most important milestones in the development of the GLAST software. During the DC2, scientists analyzed a set of 55 days of simulated data in order to validate LAT MonteCarlo, study instrument response functions, exercise analysis tools and study LAT capabilities. This contribution also contains results of some analysis performed during DC2 on EGRET pulsars.