Long-term project observations for project P574 semester 2025OCTS_01

We request time to observe 270 pulsars on a regular basis in order to achieve three main science goals. The first is to understand pulsars: how do they spin down and what disrupts this process, how and why their profiles vary with time, whether they precess or have planetary mass companions, in short all the things that make pulsar timing noisier than the perfect clock. Secondly we want to understand the interstellar medium of our Galaxy through repeated monitoring of dispersion measure, rotation measure and flux density variations in conjunction with scintillation parameters. Finally, we provide these data as a community service both to the high-energy community where we have strong collaborative links (particularly to Fermi) and to the radio pulsar astronomers generally through the CSIRO archive. The project is on-going since 2007, we are (co-)authors on 107 papers arising from the P574 data. The data have contributed to the PhD theses of students from Bordeaux, Manchester, Oxford, Stanford, and Swinburne. We are seeking long-term project status with a view to continuing the project into the SKA era.

为达成三项核心科学目标，本项目申请观测机时以定期观测270颗脉冲星（pulsar）。其一，深入解析脉冲星的物理机制：包括其自转减慢的机制与干扰因素、脉冲轮廓随时间变化的规律与成因、脉冲星是否存在进动现象或行星级质量伴星，简言之，所有会使脉冲星计时精度劣于理想时钟的相关问题。其二，通过持续监测色散量（dispersion measure）、旋转量（rotation measure）、流量密度变化，并结合闪烁参数，解析银河系星际介质的物理特性。其三，本项目将所获数据作为公共服务资源进行共享：一方面为拥有紧密合作关系的高能天体物理领域团队（尤其是与费米（Fermi）卫星团队）提供支持，另一方面通过澳大利亚联邦科学与工业研究组织（CSIRO）档案库面向广大射电脉冲星天文学家开放。本项目自2007年起持续开展，基于P574项目数据已发表（含共同署名）论文107篇。这些数据还助力波尔多大学、曼彻斯特大学、牛津大学、斯坦福大学以及斯威本科技大学的学生完成了博士学位论文。目前我们正申请将本项目纳入长期资助计划，以期将该项目延续至平方公里阵列射电望远镜（SKA）时代。