Abstract
We use the statistics of 131 X‐ray pulsar light curves in order to constrain the neutron star compactness and the inclination of the magnetic dipole. The X‐ray pulse profiles are classified according to the number of pulses seen during one period, dividing them into two classes, single‐ and double‐peaked. The relative fraction of pulsars in these classes is compared with the probabilities predicted by a theoretical model for different types of pencil‐beam patterns. Our results show that a statistic of pulse profiles does not constrain compactness of the neutron stars. In contrast to the previous claims [1], the data do not require the magnetic inclination to be confined in a narrow interval but instead the magnetic dipole can have arbitrary inclinations to the rotational axis. The observed fractions of different types of light curves can be explained by taking into account the X‐ray detector sensitivity (i.e. detection threshold for weak pulses), which decreases the fraction of the observed double‐peaked light curves.
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