Modified versions of two "standard" pulsar search techniques are presented that allow large-scale searches for pulsations in long duration high-energy data sets using relatively modest amounts of computer time. For small numbers of photons (N_phot <~ 10^4), optimized brute-force epoch folding searches are preferred. For larger numbers of photons, advanced Fourier domain acceleration searches are used. Using these techniques, my collaborators and I have searched Chandra observations of the CasA supernova remnant (SNR) point source and the isolated neutron star RX J1856.5-3754 for pulsations, and confirmed the 65.6 ms pulsar in the 3C 58 SNR during a blind search of archival RXTE data.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0112006,
title = {Fast Search Techniques for High Energy Pulsars},
author = {Scott M. Ransom},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0112006},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
4 pages, 1 figure. To appear in "Neutron Stars in Supernova Remnants" (ASP Conference Proceedings), eds. P.O. Slane and B.M. Gaensler