The maps created by the processing program show two newly detected pulsars: J0553+41 (top row of numbers) and J2015+27 (bottom row of numbers). Credit: Tyul’bashev et al., 2024.
A team of Russian astronomers from the Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory (PRAO) and elsewhere reports the detection of 39 new pulsars as part of the Pushchino Multibeams Pulsar Search (PUMPS) project. The discovery was detailed in a research paper published January 9 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Pulsars are highly magnetized rotating neutron stars that emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually detected as short bursts of radio emission; however, some of them are also observed via optical, x-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.
Today, a group of astronomers led by Sergey Tyul’bashev from PRAO detected 39 new pulsars. The discovery was made using PRAO’s Large Phased Array (LPA) radio telescope at a frequency of 111 MHz.
“Daily round-the-clock observations were carried out for approximately 3,000 days. The duration of the observation session for each direction of the sky was 3.5 minutes per day. The search for pulsars was carried out using “To search for faint pulsars, the power spectra were summarized,” the researchers explained.
As a result, the team identified 330 pulsars with regular radiation during the blind search of the area at declinations between -9 and +55 degrees, using summarized power spectra. Of this sample, 39 pulsars have never been reported before.
The new pulsars have rotation periods of between 0.033 and 3.74 seconds, while their dispersion measurements vary from 13 to 145 pc/cm.3. Therefore, the median values for the rotation period and dispersion measure were calculated to be 0.9 seconds and 43 pc/cm.3respectively.
Regarding the large sample of 330 identified pulsars, astronomers noted that at least several of them could exhibit variations in their observed properties. Some of these could be so-called rotating radio transients (RRATs), a subclass of pulsars characterized by sporadic emissions.
The nature of RRATs is still unclear. In general, it is assumed that these are ordinary pulsars that experience strong impulses. So far, only a little over 100 RRATs have been found. Astronomers therefore wish to detect more transients of this type in order to characterize them and improve our knowledge of their nature.
Summarizing the results, the authors of the article highlighted the high sensitivity of their search for pulsars with rotation periods on the order of a few seconds.
“We declare that we have one of the highest (sensitivities) in the world when searching for second pulsars in the meter wavelength range. (…) This sensitivity can be of the order of magnitude better than the sensitivity obtained in the LOTAAS survey carried out on LOFAR at the frequency of 135 MHz”, the scientists concluded.
More information:
SA Tyul’bashev et al, Pushchino multibeam pulsar search. IV. Detection of new pulsars at declinations −9o < δ < +55o., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stae070. On arXiv: DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2401.10706
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