CHIME
Photo credit: A. Renard
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The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) in British Columbia, which observes hundreds of radio pulsars almost every day in the 400-800 MHz band. I am part of the CHIME/Pulsar team that makes timing measurements of these pulsars, with particular focus on mapping the interstellar medium and monitoring for rotational glitches.
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NANOGrav
The North American NanoHertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a pulsar timing array experiment which uses observations of an ensemble of millisecond pulsars to search for very low-frequency gravitational waves from the early Universe and supermassive black hole binaries. We use observations with Arecibo, the Green Bank Telescope, the Very Large Array, and CHIME to search for small deviations in the timing behaviour of these pulsars - recently presented as evidence for gravitational waves changing the distance between the Earth and the pulsar. Pulsar timing arrays can be thought of as a gravitational wave telescope, allowing us to study the universe in an entirely novel way.
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NenuFAR
Photo credit: J. McKee
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NenuFAR is a telescope at the Nançay Radio Observatory in France, which operates at frequencies of 10-85 MHz. At these low frequencies, pulsar signals are drastically affected by their propagation through the cold plasma that makes up the ionised interstellar medium. This makes NenuFAR a powerful tool for studying the interstellar medium though its effect on pulsar observations. I am working as part of the NenuFAR pulsar team to study the variability of the interstellar medium along the line of sight to several pulsars in extremely fine detail, as well as the spectral properties of 'giant pulses' from millisecond pulsars.
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EPTA
The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) uses observations from the Lovell Telescope (Jodrell Bank, UK), Nançay Radio Telescope (France), The Sardinia Radio Telescope (Italy), the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (The Netherlands), and the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope (Germany) to search for gravitational waves, in the same way as NANOGrav. As well as being part of the EPTA efforts in finding evidence for low-frequency gravitational waves, I have contributed to groundbreaking work in identifying a pulsar in a 1000-yr orbit with a main sequence star, and detecting a rotational glitch in a millisecond pulsar.
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LEAP
The Large European Array for Pulsars (LEAP) is an experiment where the individual EPTA telescopes are operated as a single tied-array telescope with a 195-m collecting area. We take monthly observations of a set of millisecond pulsars with LEAP, which we have used for work on pulsar timing, single pulses, and measuring the interstellar medium. I am one of the project coordinators of this experiment, and I've been heavily involved in almost every stage since early in my career.
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IPTA
Banner image credit: Sam W of Simple Desktops