On Pulsar Distance Measurements and their Uncertainties
  Accurate distances to pulsars can be used for a variety of studies of the
Galaxy and its electron content. However, most distance measures to pulsars
have been derived from the absorption (or lack thereof) of pulsar emission by
Galactic HI gas, which typically implies that only upper or lower limits on the
pulsar distance are available. We present a critical analysis of all measured
HI distance limits to pulsars and other neutron stars, and translate these
limits into actual distance estimates through a likelihood analysis that
simultaneously corrects for statistical biases. We also apply this analysis to
parallax measurements of pulsars in order to obtain accurate distance estimates
and find that the parallax and HI distance measurements are biased in different
ways, because of differences in the sampled populations. Parallax measurements
typically underestimate a pulsar's distance because of the limited distance to
which this technique works and the consequential strong effect of the Galactic
pulsar distribution (i.e. the original Lutz-Kelker bias), in HI distance
limits, however, the luminosity bias dominates the Lutz-Kelker effect, leading
to overestimated distances because the bright pulsars on which this technique
is applicable are more likely to be nearby given their brightness.
