EMO-GP: Emission Mechanisms of Giant Pulses

Project Description

The goal of this project is to understand the emission mechanism of ‘giant pulses’ (GPs) from radio pulsars and its connection to the origins of fast radio bursts (FRBs) and radio magnetar outbursts; phenomena for which recent evidence hints at an underlying link. This will tackle a fundamental question at the heart of neutron star physics (and which falls under STFC Science Challenge B1): how do pulsars produce radio emission? Answering this question will guide us towards an understanding of the origins of FRBs and their utility in precisely measuring space on cosmic scales, something that will soon be achievable as we enter the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) era.

This project will initially use observations with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, USA, the Parkes Murriyang telescope in New South Wales, Australia, and the upgraded Giant Metre-Wave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) in Maharashtra, India. These will be succeeded by daily observations of GP emitters with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope in British Columbia, Canada. Observations with these extremely sensitive telescopes gives us access to a rich data set that enables a more comprehensive study of this strange phenomenon than has been
undertaken to date, and lays the ground work for important future work with the SKA.

The data set that we will assemble will enable us to fully characterise the GP mechanism and uncover the underlying link to the FRB and magnetar emission processes. This will move us closer to answering the 55-year-old mystery of how pulsar radiation is generated. The key outcomes of this project are:
• A detailed census of the known GP emitters (observations with GBT, Parkes, and CHIME);
• A deep search for GPs in candidate pulsars which share characteristics with the set of known
emitters (uGMRT and CHIME);
• Establishing a daily monitoring programme for GP emitters in the Northern sky (CHIME);
• The development of new plasma emission models to link GPs, FRBs, and magnetars.

These key outcomes are supplemented by the following ancillary science goals:
• Sensitive measurements of the interstellar medium variability (STFC Science Challenge B6);
• Understanding the abundance of the mysterious ‘scattering screens’ in the Local Bubble (B2).