Observing peculiar γ-ray pulsars with AGILE

The AGILE γ-ray satellite provides large sky exposure levels (>=10⁹ cm² s per year on the Galactic Plane) with sensitivity peaking at E ~100 MeV where the bulk of pulsar energy output is typically released. Its ~1 μs absolute time tagging capability makes it perfectly suited for the study of γ-ray pulsars. AGILE collected a large number of γ-ray photons from EGRET pulsars (>=40,000 pulsed counts for Vela) in two years of observations unveiling new interesting features at sub-millisecond level in the pulsars' high-energy light-curves, γ-ray emission from pulsar glitches and Pulsar Wind Nebulae. AGILE detected about 20 nearby and energetic pulsars with good confidence through timing and/or spatial analysis. Among the newcomers we find pulsars with very high rotational energy losses, such as the remarkable PSR B1509-58 with a magnetic field in excess of 10¹³ Gauss, and PSR J2229+6114 providing a reliable identification for the previously unidentified EGRET source 3EG2227+6122. Moreover, the powerful millisecond pulsar B1821-24, in the globular cluster M28, is detected during a fraction of the observations.