Finding Pulsars at Parkes

Abstract

There are many reasons why it is important to increase the number of known pulsars. Not only do pulsar searches continue to improve statistical estimates of, for example, pulsar birthrates, lifetimes and the Galactic distribution, but they continue to turn up interesting and, in some cases, unique individual pulsars. In the early days of pulsar astronomy, the Molonglo radio telescope led the world as a pulsar detection instrument. However, the Parkes radio telescope, with its frequency versatility and greater tracking ablility, combined with sensitive receivers and powerful computer detection algorithms, is now the world’s most successful telescope at finding pulsars. The Parkes multibeam survey, begun in 1997, by itself will come close to doubling the number of known pulsars. Parkes has also been very successful at finding millisecond pulsars (MSPs), especially in globular clusters. One third of the known MSPs have been found in just one cluster, 47 Tucanae.