Observing pulsars and fast transients with LOFAR
Abstract
Low frequency radio waves, while challenging to observe, are a rich source of information about pulsars. The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is a new radio interferometer operating in the lowest 4 octaves of the ionospheric "radio window": 10-240MHz, that will greatly facilitate observing pulsars at low radio frequencies. Through the huge collecting area, long baselines, and flexible digital hardware, it is expected that LOFAR will revolutionize radio astronomy at the lowest frequencies visible from Earth. LOFAR is a next-generation radio telescope and a pathfinder to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), in that it incorporates advanced multi-beaming techniques between thousands of individual elements. We discuss the motivation for low-frequency pulsar observations in general and the potential of LOFAR in addressing these science goals. We present LOFAR as it is designed to perform high-time-resolution observations of pulsars and other fast transients, and outline the various relevant observing modes and data reduction pipelines that are already or will soon be implemented to facilitate these observations. A number of results obtained from commissioning observations are presented to demonstrate the exciting potential of the telescope. This paper outlines the case for low frequency pulsar observations and is also intended to serve as a reference for upcoming pulsar/fast transient science papers with LOFAR.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1104.1577,
title = {Observing pulsars and fast transients with LOFAR},
author = {B. W. Stappers and J. W. T. Hessels and A. Alexov and K. Anderson and T. Coenen and T. Hassall and A. Karastergiou and V. I. Kondratiev and M. Kramer and J. van Leeuwen and J. D. Mol and A. Noutsos and J. W . Romein and P. Weltevrede and R. Fender and R. A. M. J. Wijers and L. Bähren and M. E. Bell and J. Broderick and E. J. Daw and V. S. Dhillon and J. Eislöffel and H. Falcke and J. Griessmeier and C. Law and S. Markoff and J. C. A. Miller-Jones and B. Scheers and H. Spreeuw and J. Swinbank and S. ter Veen and M. W. Wise and O. Wucknitz and P. Zarka and J. Anderson and A. Asgekar and I. M. Avruch and R. Beck and P. Bennema and M. J. Bentum and P. Best and J. Bregman and M. Brentjens and R. H. van de Brink and P. C. Broekema and W. N. Brouw and M. Brüggen and A. G. de Bruyn and H. R. Butcher and B. Ciardi and J. Conway and R. -J. Dettmar and A. van Duin and J. van Enst and M. Garrett and M. Gerbers and T. Grit and A. Gunst and M. P. van Haarlem and J. P. Hamaker and G. Heald and M. Hoeft and H. Holties and A. Horneffer and L. V. E. Koopmans and G. Kuper and M. Loose and P. Maat and D. McKay-Bukowski and J. P. McKean and G. Miley and R. Morganti and R. Nijboer and J. E. Noordam and M. Norden and H. Olofsson and M. Pandey-Pommier and A. Polatidis and W. Reich and H. Röttgering and A. Schoenmakers and J. Sluman and O. Smirnov and M. Steinmetz and C. G. M. Sterks and M. Tagger and Y. Tang and R. Vermeulen and N. Vermaas and C. Vogt and M. de Vos and S. J. Wijnholds and S. Yatawatta and A. Zensus},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.1577},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
35 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication by A&A