PuMA Collaboration

         Pulsar Monitoring in Argentina

Research

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About PuMA

First pulsar observations in South America

PuMa, Pulsar Monitoring in Argentina, is a scientific collaboration dedicated to pulsar observation from the south hemisphere. The team, integrated by scientist and technicians from the Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy (IAR) and the Rochester Institute of Technolgy (RIT), is currently working with the two 30 meters single-dish radio antennas in the Institute. Our main goal is to perform long-term observational campaign of pulsars -rapidly-rotating and highly-magnetized neutron stars- to gain a better understanding of their nature. In particular, we observe milisecond pulsars used in pulsar timing arrays and glitching pulsars.

OUR FOURTH PAPER WITH GLITCH DETECTIONS AND SINGLE PULSES ANALYSIS IS HERE!

In this work, lead by Ezequiel Zubieta, we report and characterize the detection of a glitch in the Vela Pulsar, one glitch in PSR J1740-3015, two mini-glitches in PSR J1048-5832, and confirm the detection of a glitch in PSR J0742-2822. We also perform a single pulses study with SOM clustering techniques to search for unusual behavior of the clusters during the days around the Vela glitch.

OUR THIRD PAPER IS HERE!

In this work, lead by Carlos Lousto, we study individual pulses of Vela with machine learning techniques.

OUR SECOND PAPER IS HERE!

In this work, lead by Valentina Sosa Fiscella, we analyze observations of the mililsecond pulsar J0437-4715 showing the potential of the IAR to observe with high cadence and long periods of time. This is also the first (Master's) thesis in astronomy developed in the group!

CHECK OUR FIRST PAPER PUBLISHED in A&A HERE

Project

Science

We are the first group dedicated to pulsar science in Argentina. This includes studies on glitching pulsars, milisecond pulsars, dynamics of the interestellar medium, magnetars, and more. We are also interested in radio transients like Fast Radio Burst and magnetar burst.

Technical developments

The IAR is a pioneer center for develpoments in radio astronomy and radio communications in Argentina. In the last two years, in collaboration with the Rochester Institue of Technology, we have refurbished and upgrade the Antennas for high-quality science in pulsar physics.

Collaborations

We are actively working with members from international collaboration such as NANOGrav, Parkes, and LIGO.


People

Jorge Combi

Researcher
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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Federico Garcia

Researcher
Argentine Institute of Radioastornomy, Arg

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Carlos Lousto

Researcher
Rochester Institute of Technology, USA

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Guillermo Gancio

Chief Technician
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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Santiago del Palacio

Posdoc
Chalmers University of Technology, Swe

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Ezequiel Zubieta

PhD student
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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S. B. Araujo Furlan

PhD student
National University of Cordoba, Arg

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Valentina Sosa Fiscella

PhD student
Faculty of Astronomy and Geophysics (La Plata), Arg

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Luciano Combi

PhD student
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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Eduardo Mario Gutierrez

PhD student
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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Adolfo Simaz Bunzel

PhD student
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg

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Fernando Hauscarriaga

Software Development
Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy, Arg


Argentine Institute of Radioastronomy Observatory.

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Brief history of IAR

The Argentine Institute of Radio Astronomy (IAR; Instituto Argentino de Radioastronom{\'i}a) was founded in 1966 as a radio observatory with two 30-meter parabolic single-dish radio antenna (Antenna II was built later in 1977). Initially, the IAR's main goal was to make a high sensitivity neutral hydrogen survey of the southern sky; this survey ended satisfactorily in 2000 with a high-impact publication. Even though the Institute has been the center of intense scientific and technological activity since its creation, its radio antennas have not been employed in any scientific project since 2001. For the first time in over fifteen years, the IAR Antennas are being tuned-up to match the requirements of a newly formed team dedicated to observational pulsar astronomy. The development of tools and know-how from scratch makes it a very defying yet promising project.

Antennas Varsvasky (I) and Bajaja (II)

The IAR has two 30 m single-dish antennas, Antenna I and Antenna II. We are currently performing observations using Antenna I with the same receiver used for the HI mapping survey. These radio telescopes cover a declination range from -90 degrees to -9 degrees and an hour angle range 4 hours. The angular resolution at 1420 MHz is 30 arcminutes. Since 2004, several updates and repairs were made, including a complete Front-End repairing in 2009 and a new set of positional encoders installed in 2014 to keep the tracking system up to date. The last addition was a Software Defined Radio (SDR) that allows to perform pulsar measurements from 2015. Antenna II has a newly developed receiver that would be fully operating in the early 2019.


Observational campaigns

J0437-4715

This object is the brightest and closer to Earth milisecond pulsar. Because of its timing precision, we are monitoring this pulsar on a daily basis.

Transients

We are developing a fast response observing system to catch transient events such as magnetar bursts and FRBs

Glitching pulsars

We are performing daily observations of many glitching puslars. For more information, check the website dedicated to this project here, in the PUGLI-S WEB PAGE


PuMA Headquarters

Camino Belgrano, km 40, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Email: puma@iar.unlp.edu.ar

Check the IAR in social media