Related papers: Pulsars as Fantastic Objects and Probes
Cosmic Probes of Fundamental Physics take two primary forms: Very high energy particles (cosmic rays, neutrinos, and gamma rays) and gravitational waves. Already today, these probes give access to fundamental physics not available by any…
Neutron stars are one of the most mysterious wonders in the Universe. Their extreme densities hint at new and exotic physics at work within. Gravitational waves could be the key to unlocking their secrets. In particular, a first detection…
Conventional techniques that measure rapid time variations are inefficient or inadequate to discover and observe rapidly pulsating astronomical sources. It is therefore conceivable that there exist some classes of objects pulsating with…
Indirect detection is the search for the particle nature of dark matter with astrophysical probes. Manifestly, it exists right at the intersection of particle physics and astrophysics, and the discovery potential for dark matter can be…
Recent years have seen tremendous progress in our understanding of the extreme universe, which in turn points to even deeper questions to be further addressed. History has shown that the symbiosis between direct observations and laboratory…
We review the observational properties of the class of young neutron stars known as "anomalous X-ray pulsars," emphasizing the tremendous progress that has been made in recent years, and explain why these objects, like the "soft gamma…
Experience in exploring our own solar system has shown that direct investigation of planetary bodies using space probes invariably yields scientific knowledge not otherwise obtainable. In the case of exoplanets, such direct investigation…
Half a century after their discovery, the study of quasars remains one of the most fascinating intellectual challenges in astronomy. Quasars are laboratories for everything from relativity to magnetohydrodynamics and are perhaps the best…
Millisecond and binary pulsars are the most stable astronomical standards of frequency. They can be applied to solving a number of problems in astronomy and time-keeping metrology including the search for a stochastic gravitational wave…
Peculiar velocities are the motions of galaxies due to the gravitational influence of large-scale structure, and thus are an important cosmological probe of the underlying matter density field. In recent years the number of surveys designed…
Binary pulsars can be excellent probes of ultra-light dark matter. We consider the scenario where the latter is represented by a spin-2 field. The coherent oscillations of the dark matter field perturb the dynamics of binary systems,…
Millisecond pulsar (MSP) binaries are unique laboratories for studying matter and radiation under extreme conditions that are unattainable on Earth. Recent detections of optical millisecond pulsations from three systems in distinct…
Pulsars are the only cosmic radio sources known to be sufficiently compact to show diffractive interstellar scintillations. Images of the variance of radio signals in both time and frequency can be used to detect pulsars in large-scale…
A brief survey is presented of new science that will emerge during the decades ahead from direct detection of gravitational radiation. Interferometers on earth and in space will probe the universe in an entirely new way by directly sensing…
Problems solved? Pulsar research must be considered - 35 years after the detection of pulsars - a mature science, where the basic questions have been raised and discussed. One would hope that many if not all generic and important problems…
Pulsars have at least two impressive applications. First, they can be used as highly accurate clocks, comparable in stability to atomic clocks; secondly, a small subset of pulsars, millisecond X-ray pulsars, provide all the necessary…
In the past four decades a new type of astronomy has emerged, where instead of looking up into the sky "telescopes" are buried miles underground or deep under water or ice and search not for photons (that is, light), but rather for…
The Pulsar Virtual Observatory will provide a means for scientists in all fields to access and analyze the large data sets stored in pulsar surveys without specific knowledge about the data or the processing mechanisms. This is achieved by…
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars that are renowned for their timing precision, although glitches can interrupt the regular timing behavior when these stars are young. Glitches are thought to be caused by interactions between normal and…
Gamma-ray bursts and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays provide an important testing ground for fundamental physics. A simple-minded analysis of some gamma-ray bursts would lead to a huge estimate of the overall energy emitted, and this…