| 26th of February 2020 |
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| ATNF Colloquium |
| Massive scale pulsar timing with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope |
| Marcus Lower (Swinburne University of Technology) |
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Abstract: The Molonglo Observatory Synthesis
Telescope (MOST) played an integral role in the early years of pulsar
astronomy, discovering more than half of all pulsars known at the
time. More recently, the telescope underwent a series of upgrades —
the UTMOST project — to transform it into a modern, radio transient
detecting machine. Its wide field of view, large collecting area and
fully autonomous scheduling system has enabled the discovery of more
than a dozen fast radio bursts, new pulsar candidates, and monitoring
of hundreds of radio pulsars with daily to weekly cadences. High
cadence observations of a large sample of pulsars are required to
better understand the impact of short-term and transient pulsar
phenomenon, such as sudden spin-up events (glitches), profile
variations and spin-down state switching on their long-term rotational
evolution. This unique capability among Southern Hemisphere telescopes
will soon be enhanced through upgrades to the telescope’s currently
unused North-South arms as part of the UTMOST-2D project.
In this talk I will describe the telescope’s current status and the motivations behind its large-scale pulsar timing programme. This includes an overview of the early science results to come out of the pulsar search and timing programmes, including a recent study on how rotational irregularities vary across the pulsar population. I will conclude with the current progress of the upgrade to the North-South observing system, and a brief outline potential future upgrades to the telescope. |