Why search for more pulsars?
Anonymous
1 Aug 2005 13:55:46 UTC
Topic 13059
(moderation:
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I understand that Einstein@home is about searching the sky for pulsars. In the screen saver there are a bunch of known pulsars. Can't the scientists point the detectors to the known pulsars, to try to detect gravitational waves?
We've done this, but not seen anything. No surprise -- the known pulsars are too far away. Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.Lett. 94 (2005) 181103 read it here
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I mean, why search for more pulsars? If the detectors are not sensitive enough, that could be calibrated by using the known pulsars. Surely the pulsars in our own galaxy are the nearest to us.
Pulsars are detected via their electromagnetic emission: they are rapidly spinning neutron stars. Our hope is that there are many more such stars, closer to us, that are not visible electromagnetically, but instead via their gravitational radiation.
Bruce