An Analysis of the Sensitivity of the Arecibo Drift Scan Survey

Jacob Cardinal Tremblay* and Maura McLaughlin, Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Field (Broad Category): Physics & Astronomy (Physical Sciences & Engineering) 

Student’s Major: Physics 

This project has the aim to check if the Arecibo Observatory drift-scan survey is properly detecting currently known pulsars. In this project we have been looking through the data that has been taken during the Arecibo drift scan in order to identify if it is working as intended. Arecibo is the second largest single dish radio telescope in the world with a diameter of 305 meters. The drift-scan is a passive scan of the sky performed while the telescope is fixed and the sky drifts overhead. My task has been to use the data in the Arecibo drift-scan survey and compare it to specific locations in the Galaxy where we know there are pulsars. To do this, I have developed code from an existing script and applied it to work with the drift-scan data. Using a pulsar that we knew to exist as an example, I have been able to determine that it was detected with the significance and properties like spin period that we expected. This existing script, however, does come with some problems, mainly that it is not efficient. Therefore, I am developing a new script that works in a similar way but improves the search time significantly. This will give researchers working on the driftscan the ability to search for any pulsar in the database and find out whether it should have been detected, in addition to in which directory it should be located, in a matter of seconds. 

Funding: National Space Grant Foundation 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU 497-level course