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For rotation powered pulsars, the rate of change of the spin period is expected to be positive. On the other hand, for a clean binary system (where gravity is the only force acting on the pulsar) the rate of change of the orbital period is…
The young pulsar PSR B1828-11 has long been known to show correlated shape and spin-down changes with timescales of roughly 500 and 250 days, perhaps associated with large-scale magnetospheric switching. Here we present multi-hour…
Nulling is a phenomenon where the emission from a pulsar becomes undetectable (or significantly weaker) for a relatively short period of time, followed by a return to a normal emission state. The timescale of nulling ranges from a few pulse…
We consider the currently observed spin distributions of various types of neutron stars, including isolated and binary radio millisecond pulsars in the Galactic plane and globular cluster system as well as neutron stars in low-mass X-ray…
An isolated pulsar is a rotating neutron star possessing a high magnetic dipole moment that generally makes a finite angle with its rotation axis. As a consequence, the emission of magnetic dipole radiation (MDR) continuously takes away its…
Thirty-five years after the discovery of rotation-powered pulsars, we still do not understand the fundamentals of their pulsed emission at any wavelength. Even detailed pulse profiles cannot identify the location of the emission in a…
Binary systems that host a massive star and a non-accreting pulsar can be powerful non-thermal emitters. The relativistic pulsar wind and the non-relativistic stellar outflows interact along the orbit, producing ultrarelativistic particles…
The cores of compact stars reach the highest densities in nature and therefore could consist of novel phases of matter. We demonstrate via a detailed analysis of pulsar evolution that precise pulsar timing data can constrain the star's…
The Crab Nebula demonstrates that neutron stars can interact with their environments in spectacular fashion, their relativistic winds generating nebulae observable across the electromagnetic spectrum. At many previous conferences,…
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars that are observed to be slowing down, implying a loss of their rotational energy. There can be several different physical mechanisms involved in their spin-down process. The properties of fast-rotating…
We examine the effects of a relativistic wind on the spin down of a neutron star and apply our results to the study of Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs), thought to be neutron stars with magnetic fields > 10^{14} G. We derive a spin-down formula…
The energy lost by a rotation-powered pulsar is carried by a relativistic flow containing a mixture of electromagnetic fields and particles. In the inner regions, this is thought to be a magnetically dominated, cold, electron-positron wind…
It is shown that the drift waves near the light cylinder can cause the modulation of the emission with periods of the order several seconds. These periods explain the intervals between successive pulses observed in "magnetars" and radio…
Using a highly accurate numerical code, we study the spin down of rotating relativistic stars, undergoing a quark deconfinement phase transition. Such phase transitions have been suggested to yield an observable signal in the braking index…
We investigate the effects of inverse Compton scattering by electrons and positrons in the unshocked winds of rotationally-powered binary pulsars. This process can scatter low energy target photons to produce gamma rays with energies from…
In close binary stars, the tidal excitation of pulsations typically dissipates energy, causing the system to evolve towards a circular orbit with aligned and synchronized stellar spins. However, for stars with self-excited pulsations, we…
It has recently been shown that there is a close correlation between the slowdown rates and the pulse shapes of six pulsars, and between the slowdown rates and the flux density of three others. This indicates that these phenomena are…
Some of the most energetic pulsars exhibit rotation-modulated gamma-ray emission in the $0.1$ to $100$ GeV band. The luminosity of this emission is typically $0.1\text{-}10\%$ of the pulsar spin-down power (gamma-ray efficiency), implying…
Millisecond pulsars, old neutron stars spun-up by accreting matter from a companion star, can reach high rotation rates of hundreds of revolutions per second. Until now, all such "recycled" rotation-powered pulsars have been detected by…
Spinning neutron stars, when observed as pulsars, are seen to undergo occasional spin-up events known as glitches. Despite several decades of study, the physical mechanisms responsible for glitches are still not well understood, but…