Pulsars and Acceleration Sites

Abstract

Rotation-powered pulsars are excellent laboratories for the studying particle acceleration as well as fundamental physics of strong gravity, strong magnetic fields and relativity. But even forty years after their discovery, we still do not understand their pulsed emission at any wavelength. I will review both the basic physics of pulsars as well as the latest developments in understanding their high-energy emission. Special and general relativistic effects play important roles in pulsar emission, from inertial frame-dragging near the stellar surface to aberration, time-of-flight and retardation of the magnetic field near the light cylinder. Understanding how these effects determine what we observe at different wavelengths is critical to unraveling the emission physics. Fortunately the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), with launch in May 2008 will detect many new gamma-ray pulsars and test the predictions of these models with unprecedented sensitivity and energy resolution for gamma-rays in the range of 30 MeV to 300 GeV.