A Search for Pulsars Towards the Galactic Center

Authors

Jacob W. Hetrick, Macalester CollegeFollow
Kunal Mooley, National Radio Astronomy ObservatoryFollow
Preshanth Jagannathan, National Radio Astronomy ObservatoryFollow

Abstract

We present observations from two separate methods for observing the Galactic Center in an attempt to characterize its pulsar and neutron star populations. A persistent puzzle of the past 20 years has been the lack of pulsar detections towards the Galactic Center, specifically within a few parsecs of the central supermassive black hole Sgr A*. This object is bright in the total intensity of its polarized emission, but is very weakly linearly polarized. We take advantage of these circumstances in an experimental search technique where we utilize the Faraday effect in an attempt to detect high rotation measure (RM) point sources towards the Galactic Center, as the few pulsars that have been detected in this region have all been measured at a high RM. We also conduct a wide-field search of the 5◦area around the Galactic Center at low frequencies (230-470MHz) and at multiple epochs in an attempt to detect transient sources and other significant emitters of synchrotron radiation.

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Recommended Citation

Hetrick, Jacob W.; Mooley, Kunal; and Jagannathan, Preshanth (2020) "A Search for Pulsars Towards the Galactic Center," Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 7.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/mjpa/vol8/iss1/7