P oS(MCCT-SKADS)014 Pulsars

After nearly 40 years since the original discovery, pulsar research has great vitality, making major contributions to fields ranging from ultra-dense matter physics to relativistic gravity, from cos-mology to stellar evolution, from globular cluster dynamics to the study of interstellar medium. This lecture aims to give a brief introduction to the theoretical and observational properties of pulsars. Classification and evolution of pulsars are dealt with first. Then the basic concepts driv-ing the pulsar search experiments and the follow-up timing observations are presented. Finally it is reported on some of the most interesting scientific results obtained in the last decade using the pulsars as tools for the investigation, with particular emphasis for the case of the recently discovered first Double Pulsar system