Daily Image
19-04-2016
First LOFAR millisecond pulsar discovery
| Submitter: | Ziggy Pleunis |
| Description: | We have discovered the first millisecond pulsar (MSP) with LOFAR in an observation of the Fermi unidentified gamma-ray source 3FGL J1553.1+5437. The new MSP, PSR J1552+54, has a period of 2.43 ms. It was discovered at 135 MHz, the lowest observing frequency an MSP has been discovered to date. Non-detections at 1400MHz by the Lovell and Nancay telescopes suggest that the MSP has a very steep spectrum, which made the use of LOFAR indispensable. The image shows the discovery plot of PSR J1552+54, where you can see its pulse profile and the signal strength as a function of time and observing frequency. Until recently, pulsar surveys at LOFAR observing frequencies lacked the computational power to adequately correct for the dispersive delay of the ionized interstellar medium. Last year we started using the state-of-the-art DRAGNET GPU cluster, and set out to create a processing pipeline that is able to discover new MSPs with LOFAR. PSR J1552+54 was found in a pilot LOFAR survey for MSPs in Fermi unidentified gamma-ray sources (LC5_002), which is a major part of my MSc thesis at the University of Amsterdam. The Fermi catalog acts like a treasure map for finding young and millisecond pulsars. We have observed 48 high-Galactic-latitude gamma-ray sources in our pilot program. Half of these observations have been processed so far, and DRAGNET may well be pulling out another MSP signal as we speak. Our new discovery shows the power that both LOFAR and SKA-Low will have for similar surveys, as long as they are attached to a powerful computing cluster. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement nr. 337062 (DRAGNET). |
| Copyright: | Ziggy Pleunis, Cees Bassa, Jason Hessels, Vlad Kondratiev, Sotiris Sanidas & Alexander van Amesfoort |
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