Arecibo binary pulsar re-discoveries updated

I think he's cheating. ;)

Nah - not even close :-).

The top five are (unless I've overlooked someone else)

• * AEI eScience group ---- 23
  * Caltech OSG team ----- 14
  * ATLAS AEI Hannover -- 10
  * Steffen Grunewald ------ 9
  * Gary Roberts ------------- 8
  

Finding previously detected pulsars is interesting enough but the real thrill will be when a previously unknown one is found. I read somewhere that there are thought to be around 200K pulsars in our galaxy of which around 2K have actually been detected already. So it would seem that there is quite some scope for finding a new one eventually. However it's a bit worrying when you realise that we have already processed more than 20% of the currently available data without finding a single 'noob' (unless that information is 'classified') :-).

Maybe someone who knows a bit more about the subject might like to comment?

I knew it. I knew it.

*hmph*

Just kidding, ya know I luv ya Gary!

Well, known pulsars are easy recognize and report. Candidates for unknown pulsars are reported back to the PALFA collaboration for verification, re-pointings etc. These will take longer to be published.

BM

Ha - that bunch are cheaters, too.....

Then somebody should be milking that fact rather energetically for its undoubted publicity value.

Up until now most interested participants have probably been assuming that all so far are just re-observations of known objects. If there are significant genuine candidates for new discoveries, that fact could be used to boost participant numbers quite markedly, I would imagine.

We need a bit of something to get excited about every now and then :-).

Is it too much to ask for a small table of the most interesting 'potential new discovery' candidates for the users to drool over? Even if any particular candidate is not subsequently confirmed, the simple possibility on its own would surely generate a level of interest and anticipation that should last for quite a while.

I can understand the caution in regard to making any sort of statements about results from LSC data without proper consultation and approval from the full LSC body.

I can also imagine that scientists wouldn't want to make premature claims about a 'discovery' that subsequently proves not to be one after all. I wasn't really suggesting something that could be misconstrued in that way. I was thinking more along the lines of the Seti candidate signals of a few years ago where a number were identified as 'important enough' to justify some extra time for re-observations to be made at Arecibo. I recall it generated quite a deal of participant interest at the time, even though it was recognised that the chances were quite slim that anything concrete would eventuate.

At least one would hope that potential new pulsar candidates may have a greater chance of ultimate success. It wouldn't be necessary to disclose any details about the properties of the candidate - just the fact that a candidate of interest now existed and the identity of those machines which had been lucky enough to be involved. People are really encouraged by the thought that their contribution is actually helping advance the cause (let alone the potential bragging rights :-) ).

I'm not trying to get you personally to do anything. I'm hoping that perhaps a scientist may see some value in getting permission to give this sort of extra feedback to the volunteers.

I join question. But will put it in another form: the pulsars that are located at re-opening page (105 at last update) - it's all pulsars detected in the analysis of data? Or just only from binary systems (which is the main goal of the ABP search)?
Or, used search algorithm in general, "not sensitive" to the pulsar is not belonging to binary systems?

The pulsars on the re-detection are all pulsars we have re-detected in the analysis. In fact most of them are not in binary systems. This does not reflect any shortcoming of the search pipeline but just the fact that there are not that many binary pulsars out there. The binary radio pulsars that Einstein@Home is designed to look for are potentially even more rare. The shorter the orbital period gets (which is what E@H is good at detecting better than any other search in the world) the fewer systems are expected to exists. This is, because the closer the binary gets the shorter the time it spends at this orbital separation.

Some background with respect to publishing potential candidates on a webpage: after some simple inspections of overview plots we have to run a careful (preliminary) post-processing on all the results that are reported back from client machines to identify any candidates. This post-processing code is not in its final version, so I would be careful to call anything from that a definitive candidate.

The biggest difficulty is actually that man-made signals (so-called radio frequency interference or RFI in short) do look like pulsar candidates although they are none. We did have a part our strongest candidates (which potentially included RFI) checked by colleagues in the collaboration. No interesting new candidates emerged from that check. Note, that we will go to weaker signals with the final post-processing code on the full processed data set.

We're also working on some ideas for new search methods to improve the robustness against RFI which should allow us to dig much deeper into detetor noise to identify weaker candidates.

So, bear with us for some time while we keep improving the post-processing. Don't forget that all you volunteers out there are doing an excellent job: your computers do detect pulsars aplenty (we're likely to get the 200th re-detection this week), and some of them are actually really weak (e.g. J1929+1955)!

Cheers, Ben

The radar blanking is done at Arecibo for other observations but cannot be used for the pulsar searches because of detrimental side effects. We have to do all of this after the data have been taken. Also, this is not just airport radar, but a plethora of other sources that cannot be blanked "in hardware". For SETI things are different and you can simply blank out the radar.

Cheers, Ben