Parkes observations for project P1410 semester 2026APRS_01

Neutron stars are compact remnants formed in core-collapse supernovae of massive stars. A subset of these objects, known as pulsars, emit highly regular pulses of radiation that make them powerful tools for studying fundamental physics, stellar evolution, and the structure of our Galaxy. Despite decades of surveys, the known pulsar population remains incomplete: while about 4,800 pulsars are currently catalogued, population studies predict that roughly 10,000 or more radio-detectable pulsars should be observable with our current instrumentation.
A significant fraction of the missing population is expected to consist of slowly rotating pulsars, which are difficult to detect with standard search pipelines. These pulsars often have very narrow pulse duty cycles and long spin periods, making them susceptible to reduced signal-to-noise ratios and contamination by low-frequency ("red") noise in Fourier-based searches. As a result, many such objects may remain hidden in archival survey data.
Motivated by this, we reprocessed archival data from the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey targeting narrow-duty-cycle signals and allowing to investigate lower signal to noise ratios for these candidates. This approach led to the identification of 12 highly credible new slow pulsar candidates that were missed in previous analyses. Several of these candidates show strong folded signal-to-noise ratios and physically plausible dispersion measures, indicating they are likely genuine pulsars.
The primary goal of this proposal is to obtain targeted follow-up observations to confirm and time these newly identified pulsar candidates. Confirming them will help close the gap between predicted and observed pulsar populations and demonstrate the continued scientific value of archival radio survey data.