Some recent work is highlighted below. Other people at Columbia working on neutron stars include Jules Halpern and Eric Gotthelf . Many of them are distant, and young or in binary systems. A summary of some results follows.
Young pulsars are interesting for a variety of reasons.
Such observations can be used to learn about the internal structure and cooling properties of neutron stars, and pulsar emission mechanisms. Young pulsars are naturally rare, and born near the Galactic plane. Binary pulsars Binary pulsars, depending on the type of companion and orbital parameters, can be used for ends as diverse as determining the masses of neutron stars, the testing of theories of gravitation, the study of extended stellar atmospheres, and of cooling of white-dwarfs, and the understanding of binary evolution. Thus far we have discovered at least eight binary pulsars in the multibeam survey. The companion is therefore either a non-degenerate star or a black hole.