WUNA Lunch Talk:

Anna Bilous

Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands)

Low-frequency pulsar studies with LOFAR

June 24

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

What makes radio pulsars shine? After studying them for more than forty years, scientists still do not know the answer. Astonishingly small by astronomical scales, pulsars harbour ultra-strong magnetic fields (1013 G) and most of the time are visible only through narrow beam of electromagnetic radiation created in the pulsar's magnetosphere. The thorough investigation of this emission provides a wealth of information on matter under the most extreme conditions observable and confronts fundamental physical theories. In radio, pulsars have been observed at all frequencies accessible from Earth (10 MHz – 87 GHz), and, although they are intrinsically brightest at about 100 MHz, in the past most studies were conducted at much higher frequencies, around 1400 MHz. At lower frequencies the Galactic sky background starts rising rapidly and the deleterious effects of the signal's propagation through the interstellar medium become more and more significant. Observing at low frequencies thus requires enormous antenna arrays and large computing power, something that was not available up until very recently. Still, previous low-frequency studies have sketched an intriguing picture: at the very low end of the spectrum, pulsar emission undergoes several interesting transformations and its characteristics become very dynamic. This poorly explored radio frequency range thus may hide numerous clues to pulsar life and has the potential to make a great contribution to our understanding of pulsar physics. Recently commissioned LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) has everything needed to address the challenges of low-frequency observations: great sensitivity, an extraordinarily wide observing band, and both high time and frequency resolution. I will present the latest results from the LOFAR pulsar studies, including both investigations of the individual sources and the first results from massive LOFAR pulsar census.