Pulsar Science with the Green Bank 43m Telescope

TL;DR

This paper discusses the capabilities and recent scientific applications of the Green Bank 43m Telescope equipped with a pulsar processing backend, enabling diverse pulsar and transient source studies in multiple frequency ranges.

Contribution

It introduces the upgraded telescope setup and highlights recent scientific projects like Crab pulsar monitoring, transient searches, and all-sky mapping, demonstrating its versatility.

Findings

Detection of giant pulses from the Crab pulsar correlated with gamma-ray data

Successful blind transient search over a wide dispersion measure range

Implementation of a pipeline for all-sky mapping and single pulse detection

Abstract

The 43m telescope at the NRAO site in Green Bank, WV has recently been outfitted with a clone of the Green Bank Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrument (GUPPI \cite{Ransom:2009}) backend, making it very useful for a number of pulsar related studies in frequency ranges 800-1600 MHz and 220-440 MHz. Some of the recent science being done with it include: monitoring of the Crab pulsar, a blind search for transient sources, pulsar searches of targets of opportunity, and an all-sky mapping project. For the Crab monitoring project, regular observations are searched for giant pulses (GPs), which are then correlated with $\gamma$-ray photons from the \emph{Fermi} spacecraft. Data from the all-sky mapping project are first run through a pipeline that does a blind transient search, looking for single pulses over a DM range of 0-500 pc~cm$^{-3}$. These projects are made possible by MIT Lincoln Labs.