Browsing by Author "Bondonneau, L."

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    A census of the pulsar population observed with the international LOFAR station FR606 at low frequencies (25–80 MHz)
    (EDP Sciences, 2020) Serylak, M.; Bondonneau, L.; Grießmeier, J.-M.
    ontext. To date, only 69 pulsars have been identified with a detected pulsed radio emission below 100 MHz. A LOFAR-core LBA census and a dedicated campaign with the Nançay LOFAR station in stand-alone mode were carried out in the years 2014–2017 in order to extend the known population in this frequency range. Aims. In this paper, we aim to extend the sample of known radio pulsars at low frequencies and to produce a catalogue in the frequency range of 25–80 MHz. This will allow future studies to probe the local Galactic pulsar population, in addition to helping explain their emission mechanism, better characterising the low-frequency turnover in their spectra, and obtaining new information about the interstellar medium through the study of dispersion, scattering, and scintillation. Methods. We observed 102 pulsars that are known to emit radio pulses below 200 MHz and with declination above −30°. We used the Low Band Antennas (LBA) of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) international station FR606 at the Nançay Radio Observatory in stand-alone mode, recording data between 25 and 80 MHz.
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    Pulsars with NenuFAR: Backend and pipelines
    (EDP Sciences, 2021) Bondonneau, L.; Theureau, G.; Cognard, I.; Brionne, M.
    Context. NenuFAR (New extension in Nançay upgrading LOFAR) is a new radio telescope developed and built on the site of the Nançay Radio Observatory. It is designed to observe the largely unexplored frequency window from 10 to 85 MHz, offering a high sensitivity across its full bandwidth. NenuFAR has started its “early science” operation in July 2019, with 58% of its final collecting area. Aims. Pulsars are one of the major phenomena utilized in the scientific exploitation of this frequency range and represent an important challenge in terms of instrumentation. Designing instrumentation at these frequencies is complicated by the need to compensate for the effects of both the interstellar medium and the ionosphere on the observed signal. We have designed a dedicated backend and developed a complete pulsar observation and data analysis pipeline, which we describe in detail in the present paper, together with first science results illustrating the diversity of the pulsar observing modes. Methods. Our real-time pipeline LUPPI (Low frequency Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrumentation) is able to cope with a high data rate and provide real-time coherent de-dispersion down to the lowest frequencies reached by NenuFAR (10 MHz). The full backend functionality is described, as the available pulsar observing modes (folded, single-pulse, waveform, and dynamic spectrum). Results. We also present some of the early science results of NenuFAR on pulsars: the detection of 12 millisecond pulsars (eight of which are detected for the first time below 100 MHz); a high-frequency resolution mapping of the PSR B1919+21 emission profile and a detailed observation of single-pulse substructures from PSR B0809+74 down to 16 MHz; the high rate of giant-pulse emission from the Crab pulsar detected at 68.7 MHz (43 events per minute); and the illustration of the very good timing performance of the instrumentation, which allows us to study dispersion measure variations in great detail.