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

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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.