Observations of Radio Giant Pulses with GAVRT

TL;DR

This paper reports on an extensive observational campaign of Crab pulsar's radio giant pulses using the GAVRT telescope, aiming to analyze their properties and improve emission models.

Contribution

It introduces a large-scale, wide-bandwidth observational study of giant pulses, creating a valuable database for future multiwavelength analysis.

Findings

Detailed variability and amplitude distribution data

High-resolution frequency structure observations

A comprehensive pulse database for Crab pulsar

Abstract

Radio giant pulses provide a unique opportunity to study the pulsar radio emission mechanism in exquisite detail. Previous studies have revealed a wide range of properties and phenomena, including extraordinarily high brightness temperatures, sub-nanosecond emission features, and banded dynamic spectra. New measurements of giant pulse characteristics can help guide and test theoretical emission models. To this end, an extensive observation campaign has begun which will provide more than 500 hours on the Crab with a 34-meter antenna located in California, USA. The observations are being done as part of an educational outreach program called the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT). This antenna has a novel wide bandwidth receiver which provides up to 8 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth in the range of 2.5 to 14 GHz. These observations will provide detailed information about the variability, amplitude distribution, and detailed frequency structure of radio giant pulses. In addition, a database of pulses from these observations and others of the Crab pulsar is being created which will simplify multiwavelength correlation analysis.