* Astronomy

Title: The hunt for new pulsars with the Green Bank Telescope
Authors: Ryan S. Lynch, Anne M. Archibald, Shawn Banaszak, Alison Becker, Aaron Berndsen, Chris Biwer, Jason Boyles, Rogerio F. Cardoso, Angus Cherry, Louis P. Dartez, David Day, Courtney R. Epstein, Joe Flanigan, Anthony Ford, Alejandro Garcia, Jason W. T. Hessels, Fredrick A. Jenet, David L. Kaplan, Chen Karako-Argaman, Victoria M. Kaspi, Vladislav I. Kondratiev, Duncan R. Lorimer, Grady Lunsford, Jose Martinez, Maura A. McLaughlin, Christie A. McPhee, Tim Pennucci, Scott M. Ransom, Mallory S. E. Roberts, Matt Rohr, Xavi Siemens, Ingrid H. Stairs, Kevin Stovall, Joeri van Leeuwen, Arielle Walker, Brad Wells

The Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world and is one of our greatest tools for discovering and studying radio pulsars. Over the last decade, the GBT has successfully found over 100 new pulsars through large-area surveys. Here I discuss the two most recent---the GBT 350 MHz Drift-scan survey and the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey. The primary science goal of both surveys is to find interesting individual pulsars, including young pulsars, rotating radio transients, exotic binary systems, and especially bright millisecond pulsars (MSPs) suitable for inclusion in Pulsar Timing Arrays, which are trying to directly detect gravitational waves. These two surveys have combined to discover 85 pulsars to date, among which are 14 MSPs and many unique and fascinating systems. I present highlights from these surveys and discuss future plans. I also discuss recent results from targeted GBT pulsar searches of globular clusters and Fermi sources.

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The Green Bank Telescope achieved First light on the 22nd August, 2000

Title: Advanced Multi-beam Spectrometer for the Green Bank Telescope
Authors: D. Anish Roshi (Nationa Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Green Bank), Marty Bloss (NRAO, Green Bank), Patrick Brandt (NRAO, Green Bank), Srikanth Bussa (NRAO, Green Bank), Hong Chen (University of California, Berkeley), Paul Demorest (NRAO, Charlottesville), Gregory Desvignes (University of California, Berkeley), Terry Filiba (University of California, Berkeley), Richard J. Fisher (NRAO, Charlottesville), John Ford (NRAO, Green Bank), David Frayer (NRAO, Green Bank), Robert Garwood (NRAO, Charlottesville), Suraj Gowda (University of California, Berkeley), Glenn Jones (University of California, Berkeley and Caltech, Pasadena), Billy Mallard (University of California, Berkeley), Joseph Masters (NRAO, Charlottesville), Randy McCullough (NRAO, Green Bank), Guifre Molera (University of California, Berkeley), et al. (9 additional authors not shown)

A new spectrometer for the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is being built jointly by the NRAO and the CASPER, University of California, Berkeley. The spectrometer uses 8 bit ADCs and will be capable of processing up to 1.25 GHz bandwidth from 8 dual polarized beams. This mode will be used to process data from focal plane arrays. The spectrometer supports observing mode with 8 tunable digital sub-bands within the 1.25 GHz bandwidth. The spectrometer can also be configured to process a bandwidth of up to 10 GHz with 64 tunable sub-bands from a dual polarized beam. The vastly enhanced backend capabilities will support several new science projects with the GBT.

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Giant Radio Telescope in W. Virginia Scans Newfound Planets for Signs of Intelligent Life

The search for alien civilizations is returning to its roots. In the latest chapter of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, researchers are using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to check out some of the distant worlds being discovered in droves by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Green Bank is where SETI began in earnest more than 50 years ago with a campaign called Project Ozma, led by astronomer Frank Drake.
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