The Zoo of Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent discoveries and current understanding of isolated neutron stars, including their classifications, observational properties, and how cooling models are tested against data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the astrophysics of isolated neutron stars and discusses methods to compare theoretical cooling models with observations.

Findings

Identification of various classes of isolated neutron stars.

Discussion of observational tests for neutron star cooling.

Constraints on theoretical models from observational data.

Abstract

In these lecture notes I briefly discuss the present day situation and new discoveries in astrophysics of neutron stars focusing on isolated objects. The latter include soft gamma repeaters, anomalous X-ray pulsars, central compact objects in supernova remnants, the Magnificent seven, and rotating radio transients. In the last part of the paper I describe available tests of cooling curves of neutron stars and discuss different additional constraints which can help to confront theoretical calculations of cooling with observational data.