An Interference Removal Technique for Radio Pulsar Searches

Abstract

Searches for radio pulsars are becoming increasingly difficult because of a rise in impulsive man-made terrestrial radio-frequency interference. Here we present a new technique, zero-DM filtering, which can significantly reduce the effects of such signals in pulsar search data. The technique has already been applied to a small portion of the data from the Parkes multi-beam pulsar survey, resulting in the discovery of four new pulsars, so illustrating its efficacy.

Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 6 pages, 8 figures, and 1 table