Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006iaujd...2e..53d&link_type=abstract
On the Present and Future of Pulsar Astronomy, 26th meeting of the IAU, Joint Discussion 2, 16-17 August, 2006, Prague, Czech Re
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Introduction: Although more than 1,600 radio pulsars have been discovered, only a few have been detected in the gamma-ray band. This is not because they are intrinsically faint, but because the pulsed component seems to cut off below about 30 GeV (the EGRET range), where the sensitivity was severely limited. However, ground-based atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes operating above 100 GeV (the Very High Energy or VHE domain), have both good sensitivity and good angular resolution to resolve several pulsar wind nebulae (PWN) in the VHE gamma-ray domain. Methods: This will be a review talk summarising the progress to date on pulsar and pulsar wind nebula observations and theory. Results and Conclusions: Since gamma-ray observations below 30 GeV have been limited by poor sensitivity, an instrument like GLAST should be able to resolve the pulsed component of a significant fraction of radio pulsars. This talk will show how the discovery potential of GLAST will be limited for fainter sources in the absence of contemporary radio pulsar parameters. This calls for the introduction of wide field-of-view radio pulsar monitors like KAT to resolve this problem. Most progress on PWN in the gamma-ray domain was made by the HESS telescope system in Namibia. In this case we progressed to the level where VHE Gamma-ray Astronomy is taking the lead at all wavelengths (radio, IR, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray) in the identification and understanding of new PWN. We will show how the spin history of the PWN is more relevant to such VHE observations rather than X-rays, although the latter probe the more recent history of PWN evolution. We will then show how these complementary wavebands can be combined to obtain new information about aspects such as the birth periods of pulsars and conversion efficiency of spin-down power to injected ultra-relativistic electrons.
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