Polarization Properties of Nine Southern Radio Pulsars

We report on radio polarimetry observations for nine southern pulsars. Six ofthe nine in the sample are young, with characteristic ages under 100 kyr andhigh spin-down luminosities. All six show a significant degree of linearpolarization. We also confirm a previously noticed trend in which the degree oflinear polarization increases with spin-down luminosity. Where possible we haveused the rotating-vector model of the pulsar emission geometry to fit theobserved position angle data. Our fit for PSR J1513-5908 (B1509-58) inparticular is useful for directly testing the magnetospheric model of Melatos(1997) in combination with further timing observations. For this pulsar we findthat a magnetic inclination angle greater than or equal to 60 degrees isexcluded at the 3-sigma level, and that the geometry suggested by themorphology of an apparent bipolar X-ray outflow is marginally inconsistent withthe Melatos model. We also report on polarimetry of three older pulsars: PSRJ0045-7319, PSR J1627-4845, and PSR J1316-6232 (whose discovery we alsoreport). Of these, only PSR J0045-7319 shows significant polarization.Comment: 19 pages, including 2 figures and 5 tables, Accepted for publication in A