Pulsar science with the CHIME telescope

TL;DR

The CHIME telescope, originally designed for cosmology, is also highly effective for pulsar science, capable of monitoring numerous pulsars daily with wide bandwidth and field of view, complementing its primary missions.

Contribution

This paper highlights the novel use of the CHIME telescope for pulsar observations, demonstrating its capability to monitor many pulsars simultaneously and regularly, expanding pulsar science tools.

Findings

CHIME can observe 10 pulsars simultaneously.

It can monitor roughly half of all northern hemisphere pulsars daily.

CHIME's sensitivity is comparable to 100-m class radio telescopes.

Abstract

The CHIME telescope (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) recently built in Penticton, Canada, is currently being commissioned. Originally designed as a cosmology experiment, it was soon recognized that CHIME has the potential to simultaneously serve as an incredibly useful radio telescope for pulsar science. CHIME operates across a wide bandwidth of 400-800 MHz and will have a collecting area and sensitivity comparable to that of the 100-m class radio telescopes. CHIME has a huge field of view of ~250 square degrees. It will be capable of observing 10 pulsars simultaneously, 24-hours per day, every day, while still accomplishing its missions to study Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Fast Radio Bursts. It will carry out daily monitoring of roughly half of all pulsars in the northern hemisphere, including all NANOGrav pulsars employed in the Pulsar Timing Array project. It will cycle through all pulsars in the northern hemisphere with a range of cadence of no more than 10 days.