| 29th of March 2023 |
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| Wide-band Timing of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array UWL Data |
| by Curylo et al. |
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The Parkes Ultra-–Wide-bandwidth Low-frequency (UWL) receiver was
installed on Murriyang, the 64 m Parkes Radio Telescope, in 2018.
Observations with the UWL provide an instantaneous frequency coverage
from 704 to 4032 MHz. Curylo
et al. present an analysis of a 3 yr data set of thirty-five
milli-second pulsars observed with the UWL by the Parkes Pulsar Timing
Array, using wide-band timing methods. The two key differences
compared to typical narrowband methods are (1) generation of
two-dimensional templates accounting for pulse shape evolution with
frequency and (2) simultaneous measurements of the pulse time of
arrival (TOA) and dispersion measure (DM).
The study showcases the excellent quality of UWL data across
the whole band (free of substantial instrumental, calibration, or
profile alignment errors).
The figure above shows the mean profile of PSR J0125−2327 in the top panel, and the profile as a function of frequency in the bottom panel. Each gap in frequency coverage corresponds to zero-weighted channels owing to strong Radio Frequency Interference. The overall contamination of the whole band is relatively low, and the two most significant sources of spurious signal are mobile (<1000 MHz) and WiFi/Bluetooth (∼2400 MHz) transmissions. |