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Register a new userpinta: The uGMRT Data Processing Pipeline for the Indian Pulsar Timing Array
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Abhimanyu Susobhanan
Publication date
2020
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We introduce pinta, a pipeline for reducing the upgraded Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) raw pulsar timing data, developed for the Indian Pulsar Timing Array experiment. We provide a detailed description of the workflow and usage of pinta, as well as its computational performance and RFI mitigation characteristics. We also discuss a novel and independent determination of the relative time offsets between the different back-end modes of uGMRT and the interpretation of the uGMRT observation frequency settings, and their agreement with results obtained from engineering tests. Further, we demonstrate the capability of pinta to generate data products which can produce high-precision TOAs using PSR J1909-3744 as an example. These results are crucial for performing precision pulsar timing with the uGMRT.
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We describe 14 years of public data from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA), an ongoing project that is producing precise measurements of pulse times of arrival from 26 millisecond pulsars using the 64-m Parkes radio telescope with a cadence of approximately three weeks in three observing bands. A comprehensive description of the pulsar observing systems employed at the telescope since 2004 is provided, including the calibration methodology and an analysis of the stability of system components. We attempt to provide full accounting of the reduction from the raw measured Stokes parameters to pulse times of arrival to aid third parties in reproducing our results. This conversion is encapsulated in a processing pipeline designed to track provenance. Our data products include pulse times of arrival for each of the pulsars along with an initial set of pulsar parameters and noise models. The calibrated pulse profiles and timing template profiles are also available. These data represent almost 21,000 hrs of recorded data spanning over 14 years. After accounting for processes that induce time-correlated noise, 22 of the pulsars have weighted root-mean-square timing residuals of < 1 ${mu}$s in at least one radio band. The data should allow end users to quickly undertake their own gravitational-wave analyses (for example) without having to understand the intricacies of pulsar polarisation calibration or attain a mastery of radio-frequency interference mitigation as is required when analysing raw data files.
A pulsar timing array (PTA), in which observations of a large sample of pulsars spread across the celestial sphere are combined, allows investigation of global phenomena such as a background of gravitational waves or instabilities in atomic timescales that produce correlated timing residuals in the pulsars of the array. The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) is an implementation of the PTA concept based on observations with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. A sample of 20 millisecond pulsars is being observed at three radio-frequency bands, 50cm (~700 MHz), 20cm (~1400 MHz) and 10cm (~3100 MHz), with observations at intervals of 2 - 3 weeks. Regular observations commenced in early 2005. This paper describes the systems used for the PPTA observations and data processing, including calibration and timing analysis. The strategy behind the choice of pulsars, observing parameters and analysis methods is discussed. Results are presented for PPTA data in the three bands taken between 2005 March and 2011 March. For ten of the 20 pulsars, rms timing residuals are less than 1 microsec for the best band after fitting for pulse frequency and its first time derivative. Significant red timing noise is detected in about half of the sample. We discuss the implications of these results on future projects including the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) and a PTA based on the Square Kilometre Array. We also present an extended PPTA data set that combines PPTA data with earlier Parkes timing data for these pulsars.
Pulsar timing is a technique that uses the highly stable spin periods of neutron stars to investigate a wide range of topics in physics and astrophysics. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use sets of extremely well-timed pulsars as a Galaxy-scale detector with arms extending between Earth and each pulsar in the array. These challenging experiments look for correlated deviations in the pulsars timing that are caused by low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) traversing our Galaxy. PTAs are particularly sensitive to GWs at nanohertz frequencies, which makes them complementary to other space- and ground-based detectors. In this chapter, we will describe the methodology behind pulsar timing; provide an overview of the potential uses of PTAs; and summarise where current PTA-based detection efforts stand. Most predictions expect PTAs to successfully detect a cosmological background of GWs emitted by supermassive black-hole binaries and also potentially detect continuous-wave emission from binary supermassive black holes, within the next several years.
The highly stable spin of neutron stars can be exploited for a variety of (astro-)physical investigations. In particular arrays of pulsars with rotational periods of the order of milliseconds can be used to detect correlated signals such as those caused by gravitational waves. Three such Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) have been set up around the world over the past decades and collectively form the International PTA (IPTA). In this paper, we describe the first joint analysis of the data from the three regional PTAs, i.e. of the first IPTA data set. We describe the available PTA data, the approach presently followed for its combination and suggest improvements for future PTA research. Particular attention is paid to subtle details (such as underestimation of measurement uncertainty and long-period noise) that have often been ignored but which become important in this unprecedentedly large and inhomogeneous data set. We identify and describe in detail several factors that complicate IPTA research and provide recommendations for future pulsar timing efforts. The first IPTA data release presented here (and available online) is used to demonstrate the IPTAs potential of improving upon gravitational-wave limits placed by individual PTAs by a factor of ~2 and provides a 2-sigma limit on the dimensionless amplitude of a stochastic GWB of 1.7x10^{-15} at a frequency of 1 yr^{-1}. This is 1.7 times less constraining than the limit placed by (Shannon et al. 2015), due mostly to the more recent, high-quality data they used.
We present the first fully automated pipeline for making images from the interferometric data obtained from the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) called CAsa Pipeline-cum-Toolkit for Upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope data REduction - CAPTURE. It is a python program that uses tasks from the NRAO Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) to perform the steps of flagging of bad data, calibration, imaging and self-calibration. The salient features of the pipeline are: i) a fully automatic mode to go from the raw data to a self-calibrated continuum image, ii) specialized flagging strategies for short and long baselines that ensure minimal loss of extended structure, iii) flagging of persistent narrow band radio frequency interference (RFI), iv) flexibility for the user to configure the pipeline for step-by-step analysis or special cases and v) analysis of data from the legacy GMRT. CAPTURE is available publicly on github (https://github.com/ruta-k/uGMRT-pipeline, release v1.0.0). The primary beam correction for the uGMRT images produced with CAPTURE is made separately available at https://github.com/ruta-k/uGMRTprimarybeam. We show examples of using CAPTURE on uGMRT and legacy GMRT data. In principle, CAPTURE can be tailored for use with radio interferometric data from other telescopes.
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