The vast majority of the pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
(LAT) display spectra with exponential cutoffs falling in a narrow range around
a few GeV. Early spectral modelling predicted spectral cutoff energies of up to
100 GeV. More modern studies estimated spectral cutoff energies in the 1-20 GeV
range. It was therefore not expected that pulsars would be visible in the
very-high-energy (VHE; >100 GeV) regime. The VERITAS detection (confirmed by
MAGIC) of pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar up to 400 GeV (and now possibly
up to 1 TeV) therefore raised important questions about our understanding of
the electrodynamics and local environment of pulsars. H.E.S.S. has now detected
pulsed emission from the Vela pulsar in the 20-120 GeV range, making this the
second pulsar detected by a ground-based Cherenkov telescope. We will review
the latest developments in VHE pulsar science, including an overview of recent
observations and refinements to radiation models and magnetic field structures.
This will assist us in interpreting the VHE emission detected from the Crab and
Vela pulsars, and predicting the level of VHE emission expected from other
pulsars, which will be very important for the upcoming CTA.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, "To appear in the Proceedings of the 3rd Annual
Conference on High Energy Astrophysics in Southern Africa (HEASA2015), 18-20
June 2015, Johannesburg, South Africa, Eds. M. Boettcher, D. Buckley, S.
Colafrancesco, P. Meintjes and S. Razzaque.
