Preface

Summary

The stream of research and publications in pulsar astronomy has spread to a flood tide, encompassing a wide range of observations and astrophysics. In 1967, when the first pulsar was discovered, digital techniques, wide bandwidth radio receivers, space-based X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes were all unheard of. Observations are now expanding as fast as technical developments allow, and we are already looking forward to another major step forward, the building of the international Square Kilometre Array. Recent years have seen the outstanding success of X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, extending to energies in the GeV and TeV regions. We have seen spectacular advances in pulsar timing and astrometry, leading to the most stringent tests of relativity theory, while an astonishing range of astrophysics has become accessible through pulsar astronomy, from the cold condensed matter of the neutron star interior and the extremely high energy of the surrounding magnetosphere, to the detailed structure of the interstellar medium.

Our intention in this new edition is to provide a guide rather than an encyclopaedia. Both of us are physicists and hands-on observers rather than theorists, and we naturally concentrate on techniques and discoveries, and on the interpretation of observations. Nevertheless we present the basic astrophysics, supplemented by references to papers which will lead to more complete explanations and into the more abstruse physics of, for example, condensed matter and relativity.