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Finally, using pulsars to probe the scattering region around Sgr A* will lead to refinement of electron density models for the inner Galaxy.

The spatial, age, and period distributions of pulsars near Sgr A* will help describe the stellar population in the region and discriminate between hypotheses attempting to explain the presence of the central cluster of young massive stars: stellar collisions and mergers, migration, and a past episode of intensive star formation. Timing measurements will also characterize the distribution of dark matter near Sgr A* either in the form of a cluster of black holes and neutron stars (NSs) or in a smoothly distributed volume containing dark-matter particles (Bertone & Merritt 2005 Weinberg et al. Measurements of relativistic effects through timing of pulsars in tight orbits around Sgr A* would provide methods for better constraining the mass of the central black hole and even estimating its spin (e.g., Laguna & Wolszczan 1997 Wex & Kopeikin 1999 Pfahl & Loeb 2004). The scientific pay-offs from finding pulsars orbiting near Sgr A* are potentially very high and fall into three main categories. Along with a third object, PSR J1745−2910, and two similar high-dispersion, long-period pulsars reported by Johnston et al., the five objects found so far are 10–15 arcmin from Sgr A*, consistent with there being a large pulsar population in the Galactic center, most of whose members are undetectable in relatively low-frequency surveys because of pulse broadening from the same scattering volume that angularly broadens Sgr A* and OH/IR masers. It and a second object found in the same telescope pointing, PSR J1746−2850II (which has the highest known DM among pulsars), may have originated from recent star formation in the Arches or Quintuplet clusters given their angular locations. One object (PSR J1746−2850I) has a characteristic spindown age of only 13 kyr along with a high surface magnetic field ∼4 × 10 13 G. The relatively long periods (0.98–1.48 s) most likely reflect strong selection against short-period pulsars from radio-wave scattering at the observation frequency of 2 GHz used in our survey with the Green Bank Telescope. We report the discovery of three pulsars whose large dispersion measures (DMs) and angular proximity to Sgr A* indicate the existence of a Galactic center population of neutron stars.