Chandra Observations of Radio Pulsars

X-ray observations of spin-powered pulsars (PSRs) provide valuable diagnostics of emission mechanisms and acceleration processes operating in pulsar magnetospheres and winds. We present the results from ACIS observations of several radio pulsars that belong to different categories of the diverse pulsar population. These include the 5-Myr-old "nulling" pulsar B1133+16, 200-kyr-old PSR J1825-1446, 20-kyr-old PSR B1800-21 with a pulsar-wind nebula (PWN), the famous 1-Gyr-old PSR B1257+12 with a planetary system, and a few others. The pulsars exhibit different X-ray spectral slopes suggesting that the contribution of polar cap thermal emission may become more important as pulsar ages. Although the pulsar X-ray luminosities generally correlate with the spin-down power Edot, a strong scatter in the LX vs. Edot dependence suggests that other factors (e.g., the magnetic field geometry and orientation of magnetic and spin axes) are equally important. A compact 10''-size PWN around PSR B1800-21 shows a bow-shock-like morphology reminiscent of those found for several other PWNe. To provide a more complete picture, we compare our results with those from other Chandra observations of spin-powered pulsars.