The MeerKAT Telescope as a Pulsar Facility: System verification and early science results from MeerTime
Creators: name: Bailes, M.
name: Jameson, A.
name: Abbate, F.
name: Barr, E. D.
name: Bhat, N. D. R.
name: Bondonneau, L.
name: Burgay, M.
name: Buchner, S. J.
name: Camilo, F.
name: Champion, D. J.
name: Cognard, I.
name: Demorest, P. B.
name: Freire, P. C. C.
name: Gautam, T.
name: Geyer, M.
name: Griessmeier, J. M.
name: Guillemot, L.
name: Hu, H.
name: Jankowski, F.
name: Johnston, S.
name: Karastergiou, A.
name: Karuppusamy, R.
name: Kaur, D.
name: Keith, M. J.
name: Kramer, M.
name: van Leeuwen, J.
name: Lower, M. E.
name: Maan, Y.
name: McLaughlin, M. A.
name: Meyers, B. W.
name: Osłowski, S.
name: Oswald, L. S.
name: Parthasarathy, A.
name: Pennucci, T.
name: Posselt, B.
name: Possenti, A.
name: Ransom, S. M.
name: Reardon, D. J.
name: Ridolfi, A.
name: Schollar, C. T. G.
name: Serylak, M.
name: Shaifullah, G.
name: Shamohammadi, M.
name: Shannon, R. M.
name: Sobey, C.
name: Song, X.
name: Spiewak, R.
name: Stairs, I. H.
name: Stappers, B. W.
name: van Straten, W.
name: Szary, A.
name: Theureau, G.
name: Krishnan, V. Venkatraman
name: Weltevrede, P.
name: Wex, N.
name: Abbott, T. D.
name: Adams, G. B.
name: Burger, J. P.
name: Gamatham, R. R. G.
name: Gouws, M.
name: Horn, D. M.
name: Hugo, B.
name: Joubert, A. F.
name: Manley, J. R.
name: McAlpine, K.
name: Passmoor, S. S.
name: Peens-Hough, A.
name: Ramudzuli, Z. R.
name: Rust, A.
name: Salie, S.
name: Schwardt, L. C.
name: Siebrits, R.
name: Van Tonder, G.
name: Van Tonder, V.
name: Welz, M. G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We describe system verification tests and early science results from the pulsar processor (PTUSE) developed for the newly-commissioned 64-dish SARAO MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. MeerKAT is a high-gain (~2.8 K/Jy) low-system temperature (~18 K at 20cm) radio array that currently operates from 580-1670 MHz and can produce tied-array beams suitable for pulsar observations. This paper presents results from the MeerTime Large Survey Project and commissioning tests with PTUSE. Highlights include observations of the double pulsar J0737-3039A, pulse profiles from 34 millisecond pulsars from a single 2.5h observation of the Globular cluster Terzan 5, the rotation measure of Ter5O, a 420-sigma giant pulse from the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR J0540-6919, and nulling identified in the slow pulsar PSR J0633-2015. One of the key design specifications for MeerKAT was absolute timing errors of less than 5 ns using their novel precise time system. Our timing of two bright millisecond pulsars confirm that MeerKAT delivers exceptional timing. PSR J2241-5236 exhibits a jitter limit of &lt;4 ns per hour whilst timing of PSR J1909-3744 over almost 11 months yields an rms residual of 66 ns with only 4 min integrations. Our results confirm that the MeerKAT is an exceptional pulsar telescope. The array can be split into four separate sub-arrays to time over 1000 pulsars per day and the future deployment of S-band (1750-3500 MHz) receivers will further enhance its capabilities.
description: 20 pages, 16 Figures, 4 Tables, accepted for publication in PASA