dragnet:start

DRAGNET

One sentence summary: The DRAGNET project greatly extends LOFAR's detection and localization capabilities for pulsars and fast radio transients.

DRAGNET stands for Dynamic Radio Astronomy of Galactic Neutron Stars and Extragalactic Transients.

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Studying the extreme astrophysics of neutron stars, black holes and other exotica is key to understanding fundamental gravitational and particle physics. Extreme astrophysical phenomena are fleeting, however, and it is a major observational challenge to detect such fast “transients”.

DRAGNET extends LOFAR with a high-speed, wide-angle radio camera mode that is capable of detecting and localizing fast radio transients in real time. We will scan the sky for sub-second bursts coming from previously unpredicted or unobserved astrophysical phenomena, while simultaneously observing hundreds of known radio-emitting neutron stars (pulsars).

The DRAGNET project started in Jan 2014 and runs for 5 years. It is funded by an NWO VIDI and an ERC Starting Grant (+ some funding from NOVA) covering about 8 fte over 3 institutes.

  • WP1: Wide-field transient searches
  • WP2: Developing DRAGNET++
  • WP3: Neutron star monitoring
  • WP4: Characterizing the transient radio sky
  • WP5: Understanding neutron star magnetospheres
  • Jason W. T. Hessels (ASTRON, University of Amsterdam) (PI)
  • Vlad Kondratiev (ASTRON) (science postdoc)
  • Cees Bassa (ASTRON) (science postdoc)
  • Alexander S. van Amesfoort (ASTRON) (technical developer (until Oct 2017))
  • Daniele Michilli (University of Amsterdam) (PhD)
  • Amruta Jaodand (University of Amsterdam) (PhD)
  • Sotiris Sanidas (University of Amsterdam) (science postdoc)
  • TBD (Oxford University) (technical developer)

The LOFAR slides site also contains most DRAGNET science and technical presentations (.pdf).

Status

Grants

ASTRON & JIVE daily image (AJDI) submissions (or contributions) by DRAGNET(-paid) project members.

  • Last modified: 2020-10-20 14:29
  • by Bernard Asabere