Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Investigating bright Fermi-LAT pulsar-like unassociated sources

Elizabeth Ferrara
on behalf of the Fermi-LAT Collaboration

Abstract:

The past five years have been a bonanza for millisecond pulsar searchers, with the number of known field MSPs tripling in that time. A major driver of these discoveries has been the use of gamma-ray positions from the Fermi Large Area Telescope for high-latitude sources with pulsar-like spectra. However, nineteen of these sources have been observed five or more times in the radio by the Fermi Pulsar Search Consortium with no clear detection of pulsations. We look in depth at the spectral properties of several of these sources, comparing three spectral models (PowerLaw, LogParabola, and PLExpCutoff) to see how strongly the gamma-ray emission supports the pulsar hypothesis.