Research intern helps discover a new pulsar buried in a mountain of data

US Naval Laboratory (NRL) Sensing Division intern Amaris McCarver, along with a team of astronomers, have discovered the first millisecond pulsar in the star cluster Glimpse-CO1, and the findings were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Pulsars are natural laboratories for studying the behavior of matter under extreme gravitational and magnetic fields—conditions difficult or impossible to replicate on Earth.

They also function as natural gauges. The precise timing of pulses observed from a cluster of pulsars provides a means of detecting gravitational waves propagating through our galaxy from merging supermassive black holes resulting from galactic collisions. Some pulsars have been observed to have an accuracy and stability comparable to our most accurate atomic clocks. These pulsars have the potential to create a “celestial GPS” system for satellite navigation in space.

McCarver’s team used images from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) Low Band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (VLITE) to search for new pulsars in 97 star clusters.

“It was exciting so early in my career to see a speculative project work so successfully,” McCarver said. Her novel approach of using VLITE images along with images from several radio surveys at different frequencies identified multiple candidate pulsars, with the strongest candidate residing in a system known as GLIMPSE-C01.

“This type of scientific discovery is only possible thanks to the collaboration between NRL and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory that enabled this continuous dual-frequency capability at the VLA,” said Tracy E. Clarke, Ph.D., NRL Division astronomer -‘s. .

“This research highlights how we can use radio luminosity measurements at different frequencies to find new pulsars efficiently, and that the available sky observations combined with the mountain of VLITE data mean that those measurements are essentially always available. This opens the door to a new era of searching for highly distributed and highly accelerated pulsars.”

The presence of a millisecond pulsar, named GLIMPSE-C01A, was confirmed through reprocessing of archival data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Millisecond pulsars, such as GLIMPSE-C01A, are born in supernova explosions and spin by consuming material from a companion star.

“Millisecond pulsars, or MSPs, offer a promising method for autonomous spacecraft navigation from low Earth orbit to interstellar space, independent of ground contact and GPS availability,” said Emil Polisensky, Ph.D., an astronomer at NRL’s Remote Sensing Division. “Confirmation of a new MSP identified by Amaris highlights the exciting potential for discovery with NRL’s VLITE data and the key role student interns play in cutting-edge research.”

McCarver received the Robert S. Hyer Research Award from the Texas Section of the American Physical Society (APS). McCarver was one of 16 summer 2023 interns in the Radio, Infrared, Optical Sensors Branch at NRL DC who participated in internships through the Engineering Science Internship Program and NREIP, the Historically Black College and Performance Computing Internship Program of Minority University/Institution, and the US Naval Academy Midshipman Internship Program. She will major in Physics and Astronomy and plans to pursue graduate studies in astronomy.