Pulsars in Gamma Rays: What Fermi Is Teaching Us
Matthew Kerr, the Fermi-LAT Collaboration
TL;DR
The paper reviews the Fermi-LAT pulsar catalog, highlighting key properties of gamma-ray pulsars, including emission sites and spectral features, to advance understanding of neutron star emission mechanisms.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive overview of gamma-ray pulsar properties from Fermi data, emphasizing nearly-universal features and their implications for emission models.
Findings
Approximately one third are millisecond pulsars.
Gamma-ray emission sites are at high altitudes.
Spectral shapes suggest specific radiation mechanisms.
Abstract
The 2nd Fermi-LAT pulsar catalog includes 117 gamma-ray pulsars, of which roughly one third are millisecond pulsars (MSPs) while the remaining two thirds split evenly into young radio-loud and radio-quiet pulsars. Although this large population will enable future, detailed studies of emission mechanisms and the evolution of the underlying neutron star population, some nearly-universal properties are already clear and unequivocal. We discuss some of these aspects below, including the altitude of the gamma-ray emission site and the shape of the gamma-ray spectrum and its implications for the radiation mechanism.
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