The High Time Resolution Universe surveys for pulsars and fast transients

TL;DR

The High Time Resolution Universe surveys are the first all-sky pulsar searches using advanced digital receivers, discovering 135 pulsars including 29 millisecond pulsars and the first radio magnetar, enhancing understanding of transient radio sources.

Contribution

This work introduces a new all-digital multibeam receiver system enabling high-resolution, wide-area pulsar surveys, leading to significant new pulsar discoveries and insights into transient radio phenomena.

Findings

Discovered 135 pulsars, including 29 millisecond pulsars.

First radio magnetar discovered by the survey.

Enhanced frequency resolution improves detection of short-duration signals.

Abstract

The High Time Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and transients is the first truly all-sky pulsar survey, taking place at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and the Effelsberg Radio Telescope in Germany. Utilising multibeam receivers with custom built all-digital recorders the survey targets the fastest millisecond pulsars and radio transients on timescales of 64 us to a few seconds. The new multibeam digital filter-bank system at has a factor of eight improvement in frequency resolution over previous Parkes multibeam surveys, allowing us to probe further into the Galactic plane for short duration signals. The survey is split into low, mid and high Galactic latitude regions. The mid-latitude portion of the southern hemisphere survey is now completed, discovering 107 previously unknown pulsars, including 26 millisecond pulsars. To date, the total number of discoveries in the combined survey is 135 and 29 MSPs. These discoveries include the first magnetar to be discovered by it's radio emission, unusual low-mass binaries, gamma-ray pulsars and pulsars suitable for pulsar timing array experiments.