Parkes observations for project P1032 semester 2020OCTS_04

This project aims to perform rapid measurements of relativistic parameters of southern binary pulsar systems enabling measurement of their component masses, using data from the Parkes Ultra-Wideband Low (UWL) receiver and the MeerKAT telescope. We will use the UWL data to obtain significant orbital coverage on these pulsars and obtain crucial constraints on orbital and temporal DM variations that will help in constraining the nature of the companion. We will then use MeerKAT data at crucial orbital phases to improve our chances of measuring relativistic parameters, and hence the component masses. Increase in the number of measured NS masses has profound implications for NS internal structure and for stellar and binary evolution physics.

本项目旨在利用帕克斯（Parkes）超宽带低（Ultra-Wideband Low, UWL）接收机与MeerKAT望远镜的观测数据，对南天双星脉冲星系统的相对论参数开展快速测量，以精准测定其成员星质量。我们将借助UWL数据获取这些脉冲星的充足轨道覆盖观测，进而获得关于轨道与时域色散量（Dispersion Measure, DM）变化的关键约束，这将有助于限定伴星的物理性质。随后，我们将在关键轨道相位使用MeerKAT的观测数据，以提升测量相对论参数并进而测定成员星质量的成功率。已测得的中子星（Neutron Star, NS）质量样本数量的增加，将对中子星内部结构研究以及恒星与双星演化物理学领域产生深远影响。