Modelling the growing population of y-ray millisecond pulsars

Abstract

TheFermiLarge Area Telescope, in collaboration with several groups from the radio community, have had marvellous success at uncovering new γ-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs). In fact, MSPs now make up a sizable fraction of the total number of known γ-ray pulsars. The MSP population is characterized by a variety of pulse profile shapes, peak separations, and radio-to-γ phase lags, with some members exhibiting nearly phase-aligned radio and γ-ray light curves (LCs). The MSPs’ short spin periods underline the importance of including special relativistic effects in LC calculations, even for emission originating from near the stellar surface. We present results on modelling and classification of MSP LCs using standard pulsar model geometries