Pulsar Timing for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Export

@article{citeulike:3406947, abstract = {We describe a comprehensive pulsar monitoring campaign for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the {\em Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope} (formerly GLAST). The detection and study of pulsars in gamma rays give insights into the populations of neutron stars and supernova rates in the Galaxy, into particle acceleration mechanisms in neutron star magnetospheres, and into the ``engines'' driving pulsar wind nebulae. LAT's unprecedented sensitivity between 20 MeV and 300 GeV together with its 2.4 sr field-of-view makes detection of many gamma-ray pulsars likely, justifying the monitoring of over two hundred pulsars with large spin-down powers. To search for gamma-ray pulsations from most of these pulsars requires a set of phase-connected timing solutions spanning a year or more to properly align the sparse photon arrival times. We describe the choice of pulsars and the instruments involved in the campaign. Attention is paid to verifications of the LAT pulsar software, using for example giant radio pulses from the Crab and from PSR B1937+21 recorded at Nan\c{c}ay, and using X-ray data on PSR J0218+4232 from XMM-Newton. We demonstrate accuracy of the pulsar phase calculations at the microsecond level. Data Table 1 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via <a href="http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/">this http URL</a> .}, archivePrefix = {arXiv}, author = {Smith, D. A. and Guillemot, L. and Camilo, F. and Cognard, I. and Dumora, D. and Espinoza, C. and Freire, P. C. C. and Gotthelf, E. V. and Harding, A. K. and Hobbs, G. B. and Johnston, S. and Kaspi, V. M. and Kramer, M. and Livingstone, M. A. and Lyne, A. G. and Manchester, R. N. and Marshall, F. E. and Mclaughlin, M. A. and Noutsos, A. and Ransom, S. M. and Roberts, M. S. E. and Romani, R. W. and Stappers, B. W. and Theureau, G. and Thompson, D. J. and Thorsett, S. E. and Wang, N. and Weltevrede, P.}, citeulike-article-id = {3406947}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1637}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.1637}, day = {9}, eprint = {0810.1637}, keywords = {gammaray, timing}, month = {Oct}, posted-at = {2008-10-14 22:45:44}, priority = {2}, title = {Pulsar Timing for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1637}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:3406947 L3 - citeulike-article-id:3406947 N2 - We describe a comprehensive pulsar monitoring campaign for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the {\em Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope} (formerly GLAST). The detection and study of pulsars in gamma rays give insights into the populations of neutron stars and supernova rates in the Galaxy, into particle acceleration mechanisms in neutron star magnetospheres, and into the ``engines'' driving pulsar wind nebulae. LAT's unprecedented sensitivity between 20 MeV and 300 GeV together with its 2.4 sr field-of-view makes detection of many gamma-ray pulsars likely, justifying the monitoring of over two hundred pulsars with large spin-down powers. To search for gamma-ray pulsations from most of these pulsars requires a set of phase-connected timing solutions spanning a year or more to properly align the sparse photon arrival times. We describe the choice of pulsars and the instruments involved in the campaign. Attention is paid to verifications of the LAT pulsar software, using for example giant radio pulses from the Crab and from PSR B1937+21 recorded at Nan\c{c}ay, and using X-ray data on PSR J0218+4232 from XMM-Newton. We demonstrate accuracy of the pulsar phase calculations at the microsecond level. Data Table 1 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via <a href="http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/">this http URL</a> . TI - Pulsar Timing for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope KW - gammaray KW - timing AU - Smith, DA AU - Guillemot, L AU - Camilo, F AU - Cognard, I AU - Dumora, D AU - Espinoza, C AU - Freire, PCC AU - Gotthelf, EV AU - Harding, AK AU - Hobbs, GB AU - Johnston, S AU - Kaspi, VM AU - Kramer, M AU - Livingstone, MA AU - Lyne, AG AU - Manchester, RN AU - Marshall, FE AU - Mclaughlin, MA AU - Noutsos, A AU - Ransom, SM AU - Roberts, MSE AU - Romani, RW AU - Stappers, BW AU - Theureau, G AU - Thompson, DJ AU - Thorsett, SE AU - Wang, N AU - Weltevrede, P PY - 2008/Oct/09/ UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1637 ER -