The Einstein@Home Arecibo Radio Pulsar search: Topic 2

Why do we search for radio pulsars in binary systems?

Most pulsars are weak sources and require the use of large radio telescopes to detect them. Astronomers have scanned the complete sky with various telescopes and detected pulsars in the Milky Way and nearby globular clusters. Pulsars in other galaxies are out of reach of our detectors. Most known pulsars were only found by "integrating" their signal: superposing a large number of pulses in a coordinated way to make the actual "pulse" signal stand out from the "static".

This procedure doesn't work as well for pulsars in most short-period binary systems. Since we see most binary systems from the side or inclined, the time-delay between the near and far points of the orbit smears out the signal making it harder to distinguish it from the noise. That's unfortunate since many stars are not solitary but members of a binary system. Thus, a significant fraction of pulsars are being missed in the surveys.