Authors
PAPITTO, A., M. FALANGA, W. HERMSEN, S. MEREGHETTI, L. KUIPER, J. POUTANEN, E. BOZZO, F. AMBROSINO, F. COTI ZELATI, Vittorio DE FALCO (380 Italy, belonging to the institution), D. DE MARTINO, T. DI SALVO, P. ESPOSITO, C. FERRIGNO, M. FOROT, D. GÖTZ, C. GOUIFFES, R. IARIA, P. LAURENT, J. LI, Z. LI, T. MINEO, P. MORAN, A. NERONOV, A. PAIZIS, N. REA, A. RIGGIO, A. SANNA, V. SAVCHENKO, A. SŁOWIKOWSKA, A. SHEARER, A. TIENGO and D. F. TORRES
V originále
In the last 25 years a new generation of X-ray satellites imparted a significant leap forward in our knowledge of X-ray pulsars. The discovery of accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars proved that disk accretion can spin up a neutron star to a very high rotation speed. The detection of MeV-GeV pulsed emission from a few hundreds of rotation-powered pulsars probed particle acceleration in the outer magnetosphere, or even beyond. Also, a population of two dozens of magnetars has emerged. INTEGRAL played a central role to achieve these results by providing instruments with high temporal resolution up to the hard X-ray/soft, gamma-ray band and a large field of view imager with good angular resolution to spot hard X-ray transients. In this article we review the main contributions by INTEGRAL to our understanding of the pulsating hard X-ray sky, such as the discovery and characterization of several accreting and transitional millisecond pulsars, the generation of the first catalog of hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray rotation-powered pulsars, the detection of polarization in the hard X-ray emission from the Crab pulsar, and the discovery of persistent hard X-ray emission from several magnetars.