Expectancy of large pulsar glitches

Abstract

We study the expectancy of large glitches (ΔΩ/Ω > 10 −7 ) from a sample of 472 pulsars other than the Vela pulsar. The pulsars in this sample have exhibited 20 large glitches. In the sample the total observation span is larger than 2000 pulsar years. We assume that all pulsars experience such glitches, with rates that depend on the pulsars’ rotation rate and spin-down rate, and on the glitch model. The superfluid vortex unpinning model gives good agreement with the observed distribution of glitches and with the parameter values deduced for the Vela pulsar glitches.