An All-Sky Radio Survey for Millisecond Pulsars, Exotic Binary Systems, and Transients

这项奖励将支持一项雄心勃勃的高时间分辨率的整个天空的测量，用绿岸望远镜可见。这项实验的主要科学驱动力是发现毫秒脉冲星，将其添加到NANOGrav(北美引力波纳赫兹天文台)脉冲星定时阵列中，用于探测引力波。调查还将发现奇异的双星系统、瞬变脉冲星和其他类型的瞬变源。在这次调查的第一阶段，大约20%的天空已经被覆盖，通过处理其中5%的数据，发现了11颗新的脉冲星。模拟显示，这次完整的探测将发现50-100毫秒的脉冲星和大约200个正常的脉冲星。直接探测引力波是现代物理学的首要目标之一，可能为星系形成、宇宙早期甚至宇宙弦提供独特的见解。寻找新的高精度毫秒脉冲星加入脉冲星定时阵列将有助于实现该项目的主要目标。这项调查可能会探测奇异双星系统中的脉冲星，这将提供广义相对论测试和探测极端密度核物理。这项调查将对瞬变信号敏感，这些信号将允许探索脉冲星间歇的全部范围，并发现全新的天体物理现象。此外，所有新发现的脉冲星都将有助于我们更好地了解附近本地脉冲星群体的性质。在该奖项的支持下，该小组将在西弗吉尼亚大学和弗吉尼亚大学创建本科生奖学金计划，允许学生参与调查观察、处理和后续调查。这些计划预计将增加理工科专业学生的留校率，并为本科生和研究生提供同行指导机会。

This award will support an ambitious high time resolution survey of the entire sky visible with the Green Bank Telescope. The primary science driver for this experiment is to discover millisecond pulsars to add to the NANOGrav (North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves) pulsar timing array for gravitational wave detection. The survey will also discover exotic binary systems, transient pulsars, and other classes of transient sources. Roughly 20% of the sky has already been covered in the first phase of this survey, with 11 new pulsars discovered through processing 5% of these data. Simulations suggest that the full survey will discover 50?100 millisecond pulsars and about 200 normal pulsars.The direct detection of gravitational waves is one of the foremost goals of modern physics and may offer unique insights into galaxy formation, the early stages of the universe, and even cosmic strings. Finding new, high-precision millisecond pulsars to add to pulsar timing arrays will facilitate the principal goals of this project. The survey will likely detect pulsars in exotic binary systems which will provide tests of general relativity and probe extreme density nuclear physics. The survey will be sensitive to transient signals that will permit exploration of the full range of pulsar intermittency and discover completely new astrophysical phenomena. Furthermore, all of the new pulsars discovered will be useful for improving our understanding of the properties of the nearby, local pulsar population. With support from this award, this group will create undergraduate fellowship programs at West Virginia University and the University of Virginia that will allow students to participate in survey observations, processing, and follow-up. These programs are expected to increase retention of students in science and engineering majors and offer both undergraduate and graduate students peer-mentoring opportunities.