Related papers: Spying on the quickly variable optical sky with th…
The large optical reflector (~ 100 m^2) of a H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescope was used to search for very fast optical transients of astrophysical origin. 43 hours of observations targeting stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars were…
We present the results of a survey using the WASP archive to search for high frequency pulsations in F-, A- and B-type stars. Over 1.5 million targets have been searched for pulsations with amplitudes greater than 0.5 millimagnitude. We…
Ultra Fast Astronomy is a new frontier becoming enabled by improved detector technology allowing discovery of optical transients on millisecond to nanosecond time scales. These may reveal counterparts of energetic processes such as fast…
Pulsar studies in the recent years have shown, more than others, to have benefited from a multi-wavelength approach. The INAF - Astronomical Observatory in Cagliari (INAF-OAC) is a growing facility with a young group devoted to pulsar and…
The LOw FRequency ARray - LOFAR is a new radio telescope that is moving the science of radio pulsars and transients into a new phase. Its design places emphasis on digital hardware and flexible software instead of mechanical solutions.…
Pulsars are rapidly-rotating, highly-magnetized neutron stars emitting radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. Although there are more than 1800 known radio pulsars, until recently, only seven were observed to pulse in gamma rays and…
Current and future astronomical survey facilities provide a remarkably rich opportunity for transient astronomy, combining unprecedented fields of view with high sensitivity and the ability to access previously unexplored wavelength…
We summarize the state of the art and future directions in using millisecond radio pulsars to test gravitation and measure intrinsic, fundamental parameters of the pulsar systems. As discussed below, such measurements continue to yield…
The existence of neutron stars was not confirmed until the discovery of pulsars at radio wavelengths in late 1960s. Since then, these highly compact and magnetized objects have been observed across the electromagnetic spectrum, and widely…
Improved quantum sensing of photons from astronomical objects could provide high resolution observations in the optical benefiting numerous fields, including general relativity, dark matter studies, and cosmology. It has been recently…
The observational and operational efficiency of the TIFR 1 meter balloon borne far infrared telescope has been improved by incorporating a multielement solid state optical photometer (SSOP) at the Cassegrain focus of the telescope. The SSOP…
We have built and tested a compact, low-cost, but very-high-performance astronomical polarimeter based on a continuously rotating half-wave plate and a high-speed imaging detector. The polarimeter is suitable for small telescopes up to ~1 m…
The Large Area Telescope on the recently launched Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly GLAST), with its large field of view and effective area, combined with its excellent timing capabilities, is poised to revolutionize the field of…
Pulsar searches are computationally demanding efforts to discover dispersed periodic signals in time- and frequency-resolved data from radio telescopes. The complexity and computational expense of simultaneously determining the…
Despite its importance to our understanding of physics at supranuclear densities, the equation of state (EoS) of matter deep within neutron stars remains poorly understood. Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are among the most useful astrophysical…
The discovery of radio pulsars over a half century ago was a seminal moment in astronomy. It demonstrated the existence of neutron stars, gave a powerful observational tool to study them, and has allowed us to probe strong gravity, dense…
The gravitational wave GW170817 from a binary neutron star merger and the simultaneous electromagnetic detection of the GRB170817A by Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, opened a new era in the multi-messenger astronomy. Furthermore, the GRBs…
Optical observations with high time resolution are essential for understanding the origin of sub-millisecond timescale astronomical phenomena, including giant radio pulses from the Crab Pulsar. We have developed a high-speed imaging system…
We present a new multi-pixel high resolution (R >10^7) spectrometer for the Stratospheric Observatory for Far-Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The receiver uses 2 x 7-pixel subarrays in orthogonal polarization, each in an hexagonal array around…
We report on the setup and initial discoveries of the Northern High Time Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and fast transients, the first major pulsar survey conducted with the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope and the first in 20 years…