Pulsar observation with KVN

  • Published : 2014.04.10

Abstract

Radio pulsars are highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit synchrotron radiation along the magnetic axes at their spin frequencies. Traditionally, pulsar observations have been done at low frequencies (MHz up to a few GHz), since radio pulsar spectrum is known to a power-law with a steep negative spectral index. More recently, high-frequency pulsar observations (several GHz and above) have been made as a broadband spectrometer and fast computers became available. High-frequency pulsar observations will provide information on radio emission mechanism of pulsars in the vicinity of the neutron star surface. There is also huge interest from gravitational-wave and astrophysics community to find a pulsar in the center of our Galaxy. The Korean VLBI Network has three 21-m single dishes in the Korean peninsula. Using KVN's lowest observational frequency of 22-GHz, we performed test observations with the KVN targeting a few selected known, bright pulsars. In addition, we have been developing pulsar pipelines that can be utilized with a VLBI facility using Mark-V. We present a brief introduction of radio pulsars and show data obtained with the KVN.

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