Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/5617

Title

Arecibo and the ALFA pulsar survey

Author(s)

Van Leeuwen, Joeri;  Cordes, James M.;  Lorimer, Duncan R.;  Freire, Paulo C.;  Camilo, Fernando;  Stairs, Ingrid H.;  Nice, David J.;  Champion, David J.;  Ramachandran, Ramesh;  Faulkner, Andrew J.;  Lyne, Andrew G.;  Ransom, Scott M.;  Arzoumanian, Zaven;  Manchester, Richard N.;  McLaughlin, Maura A.;  Hessels, Jason W.;  Vlemmings, Wouter;  Deshpande, Avinash A.;  Bhat, N. D. R.;  Chatterjee, Soumya;  Han, Jinlin Lin;  Gaensler, Bryan M.;  Kasian, Laura;  Deneva, Julia S.;  Reid, Beth;  Lazio, T. Joseph;  Kaspi, Victoria M.;  Crawford, Fronefield;  Lommen, Andrea N.;  Backer, Donald C.;  Kramer, Michael;  Stappers, Benjamin W.;  Hobbs, George B.;  Possenti, Andrea;  D'Amico, Nichi;  Faucher-Giguere, Claude-Andre;  Burgay, Marta

Abstract

The recently started Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) pulsar survey aims to find ~1000 new pulsars. Due to its high time and frequency resolution the survey is especially sensitive to millisecond pulsars, which have the potential to test gravitational theories, detect gravitational waves and probe the neutron-star equation of state. Here we report the results of our preliminary analysis: in the first months we have discovered 21 new pulsars. One of these, PSR J1906+0746, is a young 144-ms pulsar in a highly relativistic 3.98-hr low-eccentricity orbit. The 2.61 +- 0.02 solar-mass system is expected to coalesce in ~300 Myr and contributes significantly to the computed cosmic inspiral rate of compact binary systems.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing

Source

Chinese Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 6, no. supp 2 (2006), p. 311-318

Publication year

2006

Keyword(s)

Pulsars;  PSR J1906+0746;  Surveys

Publisher

Science in China Press

ISSN

1009-9271

Publisher URL

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0604392

Peer reviewed