The high energy emission morphologies and phase-resolved spectra of pulsars

Abstract

There has been much progress in detecting and understanding high-energy (∼1 keV-10 GeV) radiation from rotation powered pulsars. Strong evidence indicates that the nonthermal radiation is emitted from the outer magnetosphere. The local properties in the magnetosphere, e.g. retarded relativistic effect, the strength of the magnetic field, radius of curvature, soft photon density, time of flight for photons etc., make the observed light curves and spectra of high energy radiation from pulsars not only depend on pulsar parameters, i.e. the stellar rotation period and the dipole magnetic field, but also depend on the inclination angle and the view angle. Three-dimensional outer magnetospheric models must be used to understand the complicated observed high energy emission morphologies and phase-dependent spectra of pulsars. Some basic properties of pulsars, recent observed results and other pulsar related phenomena are also reviewed.