Related papers: Interplanetary spacecraft navigation using pulsars

The number of known millisecond pulsars has dramatically increased in the last few years. Regular observations of these pulsars may allow gravitational waves with frequencies ~10^-9 Hz to be detected. A ``pulsar timing array'' is therefore…

The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey uses a 13-element receiver operating at a wavelength of 20 cm to survey the inner Galactic plane with remarkable sensitivity. To date we have collected and analyzed data from 45% of the survey region (|b|…

We investigate the number and type of pulsars that will be discovered with the low-frequency radio telescope LOFAR. We consider different search strategies for the Galaxy, for globular clusters and for galaxies other than our own. We show…

A relativistic deep space positioning system has been proposed using four or more pulsars with stable repetition rates. (Each pulsar emits pulses at a fixed repetition period in its rest frame.) The positioning system uses the fact that an…

The purpose of this review paper is to summarise the pulsar timing method, to provide an overview of recent research into the spin-down of pulsars over decadal timescales and to highlight the science that can be achieved using…

The determination of the absolute and relative position of a spacecraft is critical for its operation, observations, data analysis, scientific studies, as well as deep space exploration in general. A spacecraft that can determine its own…

Measurement of accurate positions, pulse periods and period derivatives is an essential follow-up to any pulsar survey. The procedures being used to obtain timing parameters for the pulsars discovered in the Parkes multibeam pulsar survey…

Using the Very Large Array, we have measured the proper motions of twenty-eight radio pulsars. On average, the pulsars studied are fainter and more distant than those studied in earlier work, reducing the selection biases inherent in…

This paper is to introduce an online tool for the prediction of exoplanet transit light curves. Small telescopes can readily capture exoplanet transits under good weather conditions when the combination of a bright star and a large…

We present the results of PSR$\pi$, a large astrometric project targeting radio pulsars using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). From our astrometric database of 60 pulsars, we have obtained parallax-based distance measurements for all…

The stable oscillations of pulsating stars can serve as accurate timepieces, which may be monitored for the influence of exoplanets. An external companion gravitationally tugs the host star, causing periodic changes in pulsation arrival…

We present a demonstration of near real-time spacecraft astrometry with the VLBA. We detect the X-band downlink signal from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey with the VLBA and transmit the data over the internet for correlation at the…

A new method of polarimetric calibration is presented in which the instrumental response is derived from regular observations of PSR J0437-4715 based on the assumption that the mean polarized emission from this millisecond pulsar remains…

The main goal of pulsar timing array experiments is to detect correlated signals such as nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves. Pulsar timing data collected in dense monitoring campaigns can also be used to study the stars themselves,…

I describe a computationally simple, efficient, and sensitive method to search long observations for pulsars in binary systems. The technique looks for orbitally induced sidebands in the power spectrum around a nominal spin frequency,…

High-precision pulsar timing relies on a solar-system ephemeris in order to convert times of arrival (TOAs) of pulses measured at an observatory to the solar system barycenter. Any error in the conversion to the barycentric TOAs leads to a…

Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky…

Analysis of high-precision timing observations of an array of approx. 20 millisecond pulsars (a so-called "timing array") may ultimately result in the detection of a stochastic gravitational-wave background. The feasibility of such a…

We have measured the positions of 74 pulsars from regular timing observations using the Nanshan radio telescope at Urumqi Observatory between 2000 January and 2004 August (MJD 51500 -- 53240). Proper motions were determined for these…

Recent advances with space navigation technologies developed by NASA in space-based atomic clocks and pulsar X-ray navigation combined with past successes in autonomous navigation using optical imaging, brings to the forefront the need to…