Fermi-LAT searches for gamma-ray pulsars

Abstract

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi satellite is the first gamma-ray instrument to discover pulsars directly via their gamma-ray emission. Roughly one third of the 117 gamma-ray pulsars detected by the LAT in its first three years were discovered in blind searches of gamma-ray data and most of these are undetectable with current radio telescopes. I review some of the key LAT results and highlight the specific challenges faced in gamma-ray (compared to radio) searches, most of which stem from the long, sparse data sets and the broad, energy-dependent point-spread function (PSF) of the LAT. I discuss some ongoing LAT searches for gamma-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs) and gamma-ray pulsars around the Galactic Center. Finally, I outline the prospects for future gamma-ray pulsar discoveries as the LAT enters its extended mission phase, including advantages of a possible modification of the LAT observing profile.

Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 291, IAU XXVIII General Assembly, Beijing, China, August 2012: "Neutron Stars and Pulsars: Challenges and Opportunities after 80 years", Editor: Joeri van Leeuwen. To be published by Cambridge University Press. 6 pages

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• Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright Gamma-ray Source List
• A Tentative Gamma-Ray Line from Dark Matter Annihilation at the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Detection of 16 Gamma-Ray Pulsars Through Blind Frequency Searches Using the Fermi LAT
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• Three Millisecond Pulsars in FERMI LAT Unassociated Bright Sources
• Gamma ray astrophysics: the EGRET results
• 2FGL J1311.7-3429 Joins the Black Widow Club
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Deep optical observations of the gamma-ray pulsar J0357+3205
• Optical identification of the binary companion to the millisecond PSR J2302+4442 with the Gran Telescopio Canarias