Until the launch of Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi) on 11 June 2008, only a few pulsars were known to have pulsed emission in the gamma-ray energy band compared to thousands of pulsars emitting in the radio band. With the excellent sensitivity of Large Area Telescope (LAT) on Fermi in the energy regime most relevant to the pulsar research, many new gamma-ray pulsars have been discovered after a year of sky-survey observations, increasing the number of known gamma-ray pulsars by nearly a factor of ten. Along with the detection of many known radio pulsars, some pulsars that had not seen in any other wavelengths before have been discovered through their gamma-ray pulsations alone. Gamma-ray pulsations have also been detected from a number of millisecond pulsars for the first time, confirming them as gamma-ray sources. Detailed studies of the pulse profiles and spectra of these pulsars improved our understanding of pulsed emission and allowed us to test the predictions of the current high-energy pulsed emission models. In this presentation, I will summarize the pulsar results from Fermi-LAT and our current understanding of the pulsars.

Location: Physics Bldg., room 401