How can FAST improve study of the pulsar emission mechanism and magnetospheric dynamics?

Abstract

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has the potential to discover many new pulsars and new phenomena. In this paper we mainly concentrate on how FAST can impact study of the pulsar emission mechanism and magnetospheric dynamics. Several observational programs heading to this direction are reviewed. To make full use of the superior performance of FAST and maximize the scientific outcome, these programs can be arranged in different phases of FAST according to their demands for observational conditions. We suggest that programs can be performed following the test phase, which are observations of multifrequency mean pulse profiles, anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs)/soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), mode changing, drifting subpulse and nulling. The long-term monitoring can be carried out for mode changing, AXPs/SGRs and precessional pulsars. Others programs, including polarization observations of radio and γ-ray pulsars, searching for weak pulse components, and multifrequency observations of subpulse drifting, microstructure and giant pulses, can be conducted in all the normal operating phases (the first and second phases). These programs will push forward the frontier in this field in different respects. The search for sub-millisecond pulsars and follow-up observations of their emission properties are very important projects for FAST, but they may be covered by other papers in this mini-volume; therefore, they are not discussed here.

Are pulsar giant pulses induced by re-emission of cyclotron resonance absorption?

“…It is worth noting that, with superior sensitivity compared to any other single-dish radio telescope, the Chinese FAST facility may help in the study of giant pulses. We can then anticipate an era of FAST pulsar science to come (Peng et al 2000a,b;Jiang et al 2019;Wang, Qiao et al 2019;Lu et al 2020).…”

The “Bi-drifting” Subpulses of PSR J0815+0939 Observed with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope

“…The longitude and latitude of the FAST are 106.9°E 25.7°N, respectively. The aperture of the telescope is 500 m and the effective aperture is 300 m. One of the scientific goals of the FAST is to discover more than one thousand pulsars, establish a pulsar timing array, and study the emission physics of pulsars (Li et al 2019;Lu et al 2019aLu et al , 2019bLu et al , 2020Wang et al 2019). We used the 19-beam receiver of FAST to observe the PSR J0815+0939 on 2020 October 8.…”

FAST: Its Scientific Achievements and Prospects

“…More pulsars with nulling, subpulse drift, and mode change could also be discovered, contributing to the study of the radiation physics of pulsars. 22 There could also be more pulsars with glitch, i.e., a sudden change of the rotating period. All of these studies rely on the systematic observation of the timing of the pulsars after their discovery.…”