Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

New radio and gamma-ray pulsar searches among 3FGL unassociated sources: preparation and first results

J. Wu
C. Clark, H. Pletsch Dr., L. Guillemot Dr., D. Champion Dr., on behalf of the Fermi LAT collaboration

Abstract:

Half of the more than 160 pulsars detected as pulsed sources of gamma rays by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) were unknown prior to Fermi's launch. These pulsars were discovered by blind searching the LAT data for pulsed emission or by carrying targeted radio surveys of LAT unassociated sources. Isolating pulsar candidates from other types of gamma-ray sources within unassociated sources is key to the success of such pulsar searches. A list of 150 unassociated Fermi LAT sources from the 3FGL catalog was constructed based on the known gamma-ray emission properties of pulsars and using the Gaussian mixture model. The list provided the seeds for a gamma-ray pulsar blind search survey using the Einstein@Home volunteer computing system and a targeted radio pulsar survey at the Effelsberg radio telescope using the new Ultra-broad-band receiver. We will describe the source selection criteria, the data preparation pipeline for Einstein@Home, the follow-up spectral analysis of the newly-discovered Einstein@Home pulsar PSR J1906+0722 and the current status of the radio pulsar searches.