The LOFAR Pilot Surveys for Pulsars and Fast Radio Transients
Creators: name: Coenen, Thijs
name: van Leeuwen, Joeri
name: Hessels, Jason W. T.
name: Stappers, Ben W.
name: Kondratiev, Vladislav I.
name: Alexov, A.
name: Breton, R. P.
name: Bilous, A.
name: Cooper, S.
name: Falcke, H.
name: Fallows, R. A.
name: Gajjar, V.
name: Grießmeier, J. -M.
name: Hassall, T. E.
name: Karastergiou, A.
name: Keane, E. F.
name: Kramer, M.
name: Kuniyoshi, M.
name: Noutsos, A.
name: Osłowski, S.
name: Pilia, M.
name: Serylak, M.
name: Schrijvers, C.
name: Sobey, C.
name: ter Veen, S.
name: Verbiest, J.
name: Weltevrede, P.
name: Wijnholds, S.
name: Zagkouris, K.
name: van Amesfoort, A. S.
name: Anderson, J.
name: Asgekar, A.
name: Avruch, I. M.
name: Bell, M. E.
name: Bentum, M. J.
name: Bernardi, G.
name: Best, P.
name: Bonafede, A.
name: Breitling, F.
name: Broderick, J.
name: Brüggen, M.
name: Butcher, H. R.
name: Ciardi, B.
name: Corstanje, A.
name: Deller, A.
name: Duscha, S.
name: Eislöffel, J.
name: Fender, R.
name: Ferrari, C.
name: Frieswijk, W.
name: Garrett, M. A.
name: de Gasperin, F.
name: de Geus, E.
name: Gunst, A. W.
name: Hamaker, J. P.
name: Heald, G.
name: Hoeft, M.
name: van der Horst, A.
name: Juette, E.
name: Kuper, G.
name: Law, C.
name: Mann, G.
name: McFadden, R.
name: McKay-Bukowski, D.
name: McKean, J. P.
name: Munk, H.
name: Orru, E.
name: Paas, H.
name: Pandey-Pommier, M.
name: Polatidis, A. G.
name: Reich, W.
name: Renting, A.
name: Röttgering, H.
name: Rowlinson, A.
name: Scaife, A. M. M.
name: Schwarz, D.
name: Sluman, J.
name: Smirnov, O.
name: Swinbank, J.
name: Tagger, M.
name: Tang, Y.
name: Tasse, C.
name: Thoudam, S.
name: Toribio, C.
name: Vermeulen, R.
name: Vocks, C.
name: van Weeren, R. J.
name: Wucknitz, O.
name: Zarka, P.
name: Zensus, A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We have conducted two pilot surveys for radio pulsars and fast transients with the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) around 140 MHz and here report on the first low-frequency fast-radio burst limit and the discovery of two new pulsars. The first survey, the LOFAR Pilot Pulsar Survey (LPPS), observed a large fraction of the northern sky, ~1.4 x 10^4 sq. deg, with 1-hr dwell times. Each observation covered ~75 sq. deg using 7 independent fields formed by incoherently summing the high-band antenna fields. The second pilot survey, the LOFAR Tied-Array Survey (LOTAS), spanned ~600 sq. deg, with roughly a 5-fold increase in sensitivity compared with LPPS. Using a coherent sum of the 6 LOFAR "Superterp" stations, we formed 19 tied-array beams, together covering 4 sq. deg per pointing. From LPPS we derive a limit on the occurrence, at 142 MHz, of dispersed radio bursts of &lt; 150 /day/sky, for bursts brighter than S &gt; 107 Jy for the narrowest searched burst duration of 0.66 ms. In LPPS, we re-detected 65 previously known pulsars. LOTAS discovered two pulsars, the first with LOFAR or any digital aperture array. LOTAS also re-detected 27 previously known pulsars. These pilot studies show that LOFAR can efficiently carry out all-sky surveys for pulsars and fast transients, and they set the stage for further surveying efforts using LOFAR and the planned low-frequency component of the Square Kilometer Array.
description: 18 pages, 10 figures, accepted for A&amp;A