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Gamma-Ray Pulsar Candidates for GLASTThe Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) will be launched less than a year from now, and its Large Area Telescope (LAT) is expected to discover scores to hundreds of gamma-ray pulsars. This poster discusses which of the over 1700 known pulsars, mostly visible only at radio Erequencies, are likely to emit greater than l00 MeV gamma rays with intensities detectable by the LAT. The main figure of merit used to select gamma-ray pulsar candidates is sqrt(E-dot)/d^2, where E-dot is the energy loss due to rotational spindown, and d is the distance to the pulsar. The figure of merit incorporates spin-down flux at earth (proportional to E-dot/d^2) times efficiency, assumed proportional to 1/sqrt(E-dot). A few individual objects are cited to illustrate the issues. Since large E-dot pulsars also tend to have large timing noise and occasional glitches, their ephemerides can become inaccurate in weeks to months. To detect and study the gamma-ray emission the photons must be accurately tagged with the pulse phase. With hours to days between gamma-ray photon arrival times from a pulsar and months to years of LAT exposure needed for good detections, GLAST will need timing measurements throughout the continuous gamma-ray observations. The poster will describe efforts to coordinate pulsar timing of the candidate gamma-ray pulsars.
Document ID
20070018254
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Thompson, David J.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Smith, D. A.
(Bordeaux 1 Univ. Gradignan, France)
Dumora, D.
(Bordeaux 1 Univ. Gradignan, France)
Guillemot, L.
(Bordeaux 1 Univ. Gradignan, France)
Parent, D.
(Bordeaux 1 Univ. Gradignan, France)
Reposeur, T.
(Bordeaux 1 Univ. Gradignan, France)
Grove, E.
(Naval Research Lab. United States)
Romani, R. W.
(Stanford Univ. United States)
Thorsett, S. E.
(California Univ. Santa Cruz, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2007
Subject Category
Astronomy
Meeting Information
Meeting: AAS Meeting
Location: Seattle, WA
Country: United States
Start Date: January 8, 2007
End Date: January 9, 2007
Sponsors: American Astronomical Society
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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