Project area/S
- Pulsars and Fast Transients
Project Details
A recently discovered ULP object (at the centre) coincident with a supernova remnant. (MeerKAT image by Ziteng Wang)
Ultra long period (ULP) objects belong to a newly discovered class of mysterious radio transients with periods of ~minutes to ~hours. Only a handful of such objects have been discovered till date and little is known about their physical nature. These objects are likely residing in our own Galaxy and thought to be associated with magnetars or white dwarfs with strong magnetic fields.
Recent detection of an ULP object (by the ASKAP CRACO and VAST surveys) spatially coincident with a Galactic supernova remnant led to speculation about their physical association. The aim of this project will be to search for similar ULP transients from other Galactic supernova remnants using archival interferometric data from various radio telescopes.
The student will learn the basics of radio interferometry during this project, and work on a few data sets. The results of this project will help us to plan for a more extensive and systematic search of ULP objects
Student Attributes
Academic Background
None
Computing Skills
None (Will learn to use CASA during the project)
Training Requirement
None
Project Timeline
| Week 1 | Inductions and project introduction |
| Week 2 | Initial presentation |
| Week 3 | Learning basics of radio interferometry |
| Week 4 | Learning interferometric data reduction using CASA |
| Week 5 | Analyzing archival data from different radio facilities |
| Week 6 | Analyzing archival data from different radio facilities |
| Week 7 | Searching from ULP transients |
| Week 8 | Interpretation of results |
| Week 9 | Final presentation |
| Week 10 | Final report |
