Recent surveys at Parkes, in particular the 70 cm survey of the southern sky, have discovered many pulsars, including 17 miilisecond pulsars in the Galactic disk. Timing and polarization observations of some of these pulsars are described. The only two pulsars known to be in orbit around massive non-degenerate stellar compamons were also discovered at Parkes, and some recent observational results for these pulsars are also presented.

Cores of globular clusters are an ideal place for close encounters between stars. The outcome of tidal capture can be stellar mergers, close binaries between normal stars (W UMa type), cataclysmic variables composed of white dwarf and normal star pairs, or low-mass X-ray binaries consisting of a neutron star and a normal star pairs. Stellar mergers can be the origin of blue stragglers in dense globular clusters although they are hard to observe. Low mass X-ray binaries would eventually become binary pulsars with short pulse periods after the neutron stars accrete sufficient amount of matter from the companion. However, large number of recently discovered, isolated millisecond pulsars (as opposed to binary pulsars) in globular clusters may imply that they do not have to gain angular speeds during the X-ray binary phase. We propose that these isolated millisecond pulsars may have formed through the disruptive encounters, which lead to the formation of accretion disk without Roche lobe filling companion, between a neutron star and a main-sequence star. Based on recently developed multicomponent models for the dynamical evolution of globular clusters, we compute the expected numbers of various systems formed by tidal capture as a function of time.

More than 100 γ−ray pulsars have been discovered by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. With a significantly enlarged sample size, it is possible to compare the properties of different classes. Radio-quiet (RQ) γ−ray pulsars form a distinct population, and various studies have shown that the properties of the RQ population can be intrinsically different from those of radio-loud (RL) pulsars. Utilizing these differences, it is possible to further classify the pulsar-like unidentified γ−ray sources into sub-groups. In this study, we suggest the possibility of distinguishing RQ/RL pulsars by their spectral shape. We compute the probabilities of a pulsar to be RQ or RL for a given spectral curvature. This can provide a key to the estimation of the intrinsic fraction of radio-quietness in the γ−ray pulsar population, which can place a tight constraint on the emission geometry.

We use the non-stationary three dimensional two-layer outer gap model to explain gamma-ray emissions from a pulsar magnetosphere. We found out that for some pulsars like the Geminga pulsar, it was hard to explain emissions above a level of around 1 GeV. We then developed the model into a non-stationary model. In this model we assigned a power-law distribution to one or more of the spectral parameters proposed in the previous model and calculated the weighted phaseaveraged spectrum. Though this model is suitable for some pulsars, it still cannot explain the high energy emission of the Geminga pulsar. An Inverse-Compton Scattering component between the primary particles and the radio photons in the outer magnetosphere was introduced into the model, and this component produced a sufficient number of GeV photons in the spectrum of the Geminga pulsar.

In this review paper we explain the following gamma-ray emission features from the millisecond pulsars. (1) Why is the dipolar field of millisecond pulsars so weak but the magnetic pair creation process may still be able to control the size of the outergap? (2) A sub-GeV pulse component could occur in the vicinity of the radio pulse of millisecond pulsars. (3) Orbital modulated gamma-rays should exist in the black widow systems for large viewing angle.

We report the detection of a quasi-sinusoidally modulated optical flux with a period of 4.6343 hour in the optical and infrared band of the Fermi source 2FGL J2339.7-0531. Comparing the multi-wavelength observations, we suggest that 2FGL J2339.7-0531 is a γ-ray emitting millisecond pulsar (MSP) in a binary system with an optically visible late-type companion accreted by the pulsar, where the MSP is responsible for the γ-ray emission while the optical and infrared emission originate from the heated side of the companion. Based on the optical properties, the companion star is believed to be heated by the pulsar and reaches peak magnitude when the heated side faces the observer. We conclude that 2FGL J2339.7-0531 is a member of a subclass of γ-ray emitting pulsars -the ‘black widows’- recently revealed to be evaporating their companions in the late-stage of recycling as a prominent group of these newly revealed Fermi sources.

Rotation-powered pulsars are excellent laboratories for studying particle acceleration as well as fundamental physics of strong gravity, strong magnetic fields and relativity. Particle acceleration and high-energy emission from the polar caps is expected to occur in connection with electron-positron pair cascades. I will review acceleration and gamma-ray emission from the pulsar polar cap and associated slot gap. Predictions of these models can be tested with the data set on pulsars collected by the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope over the last four years, using both detailed light curve fitting, population synthesis and phase-resolved spectroscopy.

We use the outer gap model to explain the spectrum and the energy dependent light curves of the X-ray and soft γ-rayradiations of the spin-down powered pulsar PSR B1509-58. In the outer gap model, most pairs inside the gap are createdaround the null charge surface and the gap’s electric field separates the opposite charges to move in opposite directions.Consequently, the region from the null charge surface to the light cylinder is dominated by the outflow current and that fromthe null charge surface to the star is dominated by the inflow current. We suggest that the viewing angle of PSR B1509-58 onlyreceives the inflow radiation. The incoming curvature photons are converted to pairs by the strong magnetic field of the star.The X-rays and soft γ-rays of PSR B1509-58 result from the synchrotron radiation of these pairs. The magnetic pair creationrequires a large pitch angle, which makes the pulse profile of the synchrotron radiation distinct from that of the curvatureradiation. We carefully trace the pulse profiles of the synchrotron radiation with different pitch angles. We find that thedifferences between the light curves of different energy bands are due to the different pitch angles of the secondary pairs, andthe second peak appearing at E > 10 MeV comes from the region near the star, where the stronger magnetic field allows thepair creation to happen with a smaller pitch angle.

Anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are thought to be magnetars which are young isolated neutron stars with extremely strongmagnetic fields of >1014 Gauss. Their tremendous magnetic fields inferred from the spin parameters provide a huge energyreservoir to power the observed X-ray emission. High-energy emission above 0.3 MeV has never been detected despiteintensive search. Here, we present the possible Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detection of γ-ray pulsations above 200MeV from the AXP, 1E 2259+586, which puts the current theoretical models of γ-ray emission mechanisms of magnetars intochallenge. We speculate that the high-energy γ-rays originate from the outer magnetosphere of the magnetar.