Goals, Strategies and First Discoveries of AO327, the Arecibo All-Sky 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey

TL;DR

AO327 is a pulsar survey using the Arecibo telescope at 327 MHz, discovering 24 new pulsars including millisecond and binary systems, with initial results demonstrating its sensitivity and potential for astrophysical insights.

Contribution

This paper presents the first results of AO327, a new drift survey at 327 MHz, including the discovery of 24 new pulsars and analysis of its sensitivity compared to other surveys.

Findings

Discovered 24 new pulsars, including millisecond and binary systems.

Detected 44 known pulsars, confirming survey sensitivity.

Compared AO327's sensitivity and coverage with other low-frequency pulsar surveys.

Abstract

We report initial results from AO327, a drift survey for pulsars with the Arecibo telescope at 327 MHz. The first phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of -1 to 28 degrees, excluding the region within 5 degrees of the Galactic plane, where high scattering and dispersion make low-frequency surveys sub-optimal. We record data from a 57 MHz bandwidth with 1024 channels and 125 us sampling time. The 60 s transit time through the AO327 beam means that the survey is sensitive to very tight relativistic binaries even with no acceleration searches. To date we have detected 44 known pulsars with periods ranging from 3 ms to 2.21 s and discovered 24 new pulsars. The new discoveries include three millisecond pulsars, three objects with periods of a few tens of milliseconds typical of young as well as mildly recycled pulsars, a nuller, and a rotating radio transient. Five of the new discoveries are in binary systems. The second phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of 28 to 38 degrees. We compare the sensitivity and search volume of AO327 to the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey and the GBT350 drift survey, both of which operate at 350 MHz.