Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Following the Treasure Map: An Update on the Fermi Pulsar Search Consortium

Paul Ray
(on behalf of the Fermi Pulsar Search Consortium and the Fermi LAT Team)

Abstract:

The Fermi Pulsar Search Consortium (PSC) was formed to coordinate efforts by radio astronomers to search for radio pulsars powering the large, and growing, number of unassociated gamma-ray sources discovered during the ongoing Fermi LAT survey. Under the terms of an MOU, preliminary source positions based on the catalog analysis were shared with the PSC to enable searches using the world's largest radio telescopes. This effort has been spectacularly successful, with about 90 millisecond pulsar (MSP) discoveries over the first decade of the LAT survey operations. This is a large fraction of the total known Galactic MSP population. Among the discoveries are over a dozen pulsars that have been added to Pulsar Timing Array programs, a surprising number of interacting binary (black widow and redback) systems, and many fast and energetic MSPs. We give an update on the status of the PSC searches and discoveries and the progress in timing them and confirming their association via gamma-ray pulsation detections. The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges support for LAT development, operation and data analysis from NASA and DOE (United States), CEA/Irfu and IN2P3/CNRS (France), ASI and INFN (Italy), MEXT, KEK, and JAXA (Japan), and the K.A.~Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the National Space Board (Sweden). Science analysis support in the operations phase from INAF (Italy) and CNES (France) is also gratefully acknowledged. This work performed in part under DOE Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. Fermi work at NRL is supported by NASA.