PM Survey: Key Aspects

We use the 20 cm multibeam receiver system and multibeam filter banks,
digitizer and data-acquisition system to survey a region within |b| < 5
degrees in the inner Galactic plane for pulsars, many of which will be young
and/or short-period. Our survey is a factor of seven more sensitive to young
and distant pulsars than that of Johnston et al. (1992) which detected 100
pulsars.

The PM Survey is specifically targeted for:

   * obscured regions of the Galactic plane
   * young pulsars
   * binary pulsars with massive companions

As of August 1999, analysis of about 50% of the total expected data to be
collected has resulted in the confirmed detection of over 400 new pulsars
(an increase of more than 50% of the known population).

Here are some of the features of the PM Survey:

   * Survey Area: -260 < l < 50 deg , -5 < b < 5 deg
   * Center Frequency: 1374 MHz
   * Bandwidth: 288 MHz (96 channels x 3 MHz per channel x 2 polarizations)
   * Sampling Rate: 0.25 ms x 1 bit per channel
   * Integration Time: 35 min per pointing (13 beams per pointing)
   * Data Storage: DLT tape (about 35 GB per tape)
   * Sensitivity: about 7 times better than previous 400 MHz surveys