Asian Basic and Applied Research Journal

This study presents a comprehensive comparative statistical analysis of the physical properties of normal pulsars (NPs) and millisecond pulsars (MPs) using data obtained from the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) Pulsar Catalogue. A total of 28 observational and derived pulsar parameters describing rotational, magnetic, radiative, kinematic, spatial, and evolutionary characteristics were analysed to quantify statistical differences between the two pulsar populations. Descriptive statistics, including measures of central tendency and dispersion, were complemented by distributional statistics based on quartiles, interquartile ranges (IQRs), skewness, and kurtosis. Comparative NP/MP ratios were evaluated to quantify the magnitude of population differences, while Pearson's and Spearman's correlation analyses were employed to investigate relationships among pulsar parameters. The results indicate statistically distinct evolutionary characteristics between the two pulsar populations. Normal pulsars exhibit longer spin periods, larger period derivatives, stronger surface magnetic fields, higher radio luminosities, greater proper motions, faster transverse velocities, and substantially broader statistical distributions than millisecond pulsars. In contrast, millisecond pulsars are characterised by extremely rapid rotation, much smaller spin-down rates, considerably older characteristic ages, weaker surface magnetic fields, and stronger magnetic fields at the light cylinder, consistent with their recycled origin through prolonged binary accretion. Distributional analyses demonstrate that most pulsar parameters are strongly non-Gaussian, exhibiting pronounced skewness and high kurtosis, which indicate the prevalence of heavy-tailed distributions and extreme outliers. Normal pulsars generally possess larger interquartile ranges and greater statistical heterogeneity than millisecond pulsars, whereas the latter form a comparatively more homogeneous population despite retaining broad distributions in age, spin frequency, and energetic properties. Correlation analyses reveal strong relationships among rotational, magnetic, energetic, and evolutionary parameters that are consistent with established neutron-star evolution. Overall, the statistical findings provide qualitative evidence supporting the evolutionary scenario in which millisecond pulsars represent recycled descendants of ordinary pulsars that have been spun up through binary mass accretion. The results further demonstrate that robust descriptive, distributional, and correlation analyses provide an effective framework for characterising pulsar populations and identifying the fundamental physical processes governing neutron-star evolution.