The hunt for new pulsars with the Green Bank Telescope

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent pulsar discoveries made with the Green Bank Telescope, highlighting two major surveys that have identified 85 pulsars, including millisecond pulsars crucial for gravitational wave detection.

Contribution

It presents the results of two recent large-area pulsar surveys with the GBT, including the discovery of 85 pulsars and the identification of systems valuable for gravitational wave research.

Findings

Discovered 85 pulsars, including 14 millisecond pulsars.

Identified unique and interesting pulsar systems.

Enhanced understanding of pulsar populations and their applications.

Abstract

The Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world and is one of our greatest tools for discovering and studying radio pulsars. Over the last decade, the GBT has successfully found over 100 new pulsars through large-area surveys. Here I discuss the two most recent---the GBT 350 MHz Drift-scan survey and the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey. The primary science goal of both surveys is to find interesting individual pulsars, including young pulsars, rotating radio transients, exotic binary systems, and especially bright millisecond pulsars (MSPs) suitable for inclusion in Pulsar Timing Arrays, which are trying to directly detect gravitational waves. These two surveys have combined to discover 85 pulsars to date, among which are 14 MSPs and many unique and fascinating systems. I present highlights from these surveys and discuss future plans. I also discuss recent results from targeted GBT pulsar searches of globular clusters and Fermi sources.