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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
One of the important unsolved problems in pulsar astrophysics concerns the formation and evolution of their magnetic fields. We summarize measurements of braking indices and their implications for the spin and magnetic field evolution of young pulsars. An analysis of the period-period derivative diagram suggests one or more of the following: (a) a substantial population of young pulsars remains undiscovered; (b) a large fraction of all slow pulsars may be recycled; (c) magnetic fields in isolated pulsars decay by a factor of a few in the first few million years. We also note that the observed P-Ṗ distribution of millisecond pulsars may be shaped by luminosity evolution.