A critical evaluation of pulsar distance measurements

All pulsar distance measurements in the literature are critically evaluated. There are 73 pulsar distances; 50 of these are kinematic distances, three are parallax distances, and 20 are association distances. The distance determination methods and the observations are reviewed, with attention given to the limitations of and errors inherent in each. For the kinematic distance method, a strict set of criteria is defined for determining upper and lower distance limits. These are then consistently applied for all pulsars toward which neutral hydrogen absorption spectra have been measured. Distances to pulsars in associations are determined with the best available methods and inconsistent parallax measurements are examined. The final result is a complete list of our adopted distances or distance limits to 73 pulsars. 104 refs