Search

High-precision pulsar timing relies on a solar system ephemeris in order to convert times of arrival (TOAs) of pulses measured at an observatory to the solar system barycenter. Any error in the conversion to the barycentric TOAs leads to a systematic variation in the observed timing residuals; specifically, an incorrect planetary mass leads to a predominantly sinusoidal variation having a period and phase associated with the planet's orbital motion about the Sun. By using an array of pulsars (PSRs J0437-4715, J1744-1134, J1857+0943, J1909-3744), the masses of the planetary systems from Mercury to Saturn have been determined. These masses are consistent with the best-known masses determined by spacecraft observations, with the mass of the Jovian system, 9.547921(2)×10-4M⊙, being significantly more accurate than the mass determined from the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, and consistent with but less accurate than the value from the Galileo spacecraft. While spacecraft are likely to produce the most accurate measurements for individual solar system bodies, the pulsar technique is sensitive to planetary system masses and has the potential to provide the most accurate values of these masses for some planets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Parkes multibeam pulsar survey is a deep search of the Galactic plane for pulsars. It uses a 13-beam receiver system operating at 1.4 GHz on the 64-m Parkes radio telescope. It has much higher sensitivity than any previous similar survey and is finding large numbers of previously unknown pulsars, many of which are relatively young and energetic. On the basis of an empirical comparison of their properties with other young radio pulsars, some of the new discoveries are expected to be observable as pulsed γ-ray sources. We describe the survey motivation, the experiment characteristics and the results achieved so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]