New pulsars detected in gamma-rays with the Fermi-LAT

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) is a powerful pulsar detector, as demonstrated by the over one hundred objects in its second catalog of pulsars. Pass 8 is a new reconstruction and event selection strategy developed by the Fermi-LAT collaboration. Due to the increased acceptance at low energy, Pass 8 improves the pulsation detection sensitivity. Ten new pulsars rise above the 5 sigma threshold and are presented in this work, as well as one previously seen with the former Pass 7 reconstruction. More than 60$%$ of the known pulsars with spin-down power ($dot{E}$) greater than $10^{36}$ erg/s show pulsations in gamma-rays, as seen with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Many non-detections of these energetic pulsars are thought to be a consequence of a high background level, or a large distance leading to a flux below the sensitivity limit of the instrument. The gamma-ray beams of the others probably miss the Earth. The new Pass 8 data now allows the detection of gamma ray pulsations from three of these high spin-down pulsars, PSRs J1828$-$1101, J1831$-$0952 and J1837$-$0604, as well as three others with $dot{E}$ $ge 10^{35}$ erg/s. We report on their properties and we discuss the reasons for their detection with Pass 8.

Radio counterparts of gamma-ray pulsars

Observations of pulsars with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi satellite have revolutionized our view of the gamma-ray pulsar population. For the first time, a large number of young gamma-ray pulsars have been discovered in blind searches of the LAT data. More generally, the LAT has discovered many new gamma-ray sources whose properties suggest that they are powered by unknown pulsars. Radio observations of gamma-ray sources have been key to the success of pulsar studies with the LAT. For example, radio observations of LAT-discovered pulsars provide constraints on the relative beaming fractions, which are crucial for pulsar population studies. Also, radio searches of LAT sources with no known counterparts have been very efficient, with the discovery of over forty millisecond pulsars. I review radio follow-up studies of LAT-discovered pulsars and unidentified sources, and discuss some of the implications of the results.