Detection of pulses from the Vela pulsar at millimeter wavelengths with phased ALMA

Abstract

We report on the first detection of pulsed radio emission from a radio pulsar with the ALMA telescope. The detection was made in the Band-3 frequency range (85-101 GHz) using ALMA in the phased-array mode developed for VLBI observations. A software pipeline has been implemented to enable a regular pulsar observing mode in the future. We describe the pipeline and demonstrate the capability of ALMA to perform pulsar timing and searching. We also measure the flux density and polarization properties of the Vela pulsar (PSR J0835$-$4510) at mm-wavelengths, providing the first polarimetric study of any ordinary pulsar at frequencies above 32 GHz. Finally, we discuss the lessons learned from the Vela observations for future pulsar studies with ALMA, particularly for searches near the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center, and the potential of using pulsars for polarization calibration of ALMA.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures, published in ApJ letter

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• An 86-GHz search for Pulsars in the Galactic Center with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
• Searching for pulsars in the Galactic Centre at 3 and 2 mm
• A Characterization of the ALMA Phasing System at 345 GHz
• Detection of the magnetar XTE J1810-197 at 150 and 260 GHz with the NIKA2 Kinetic Inductance Detector camera
• Submillimeter pulsations from the magnetar XTE J1810-197
• Refining pulsar radio emission due to streaming instabilities: Linear theory and PIC simulations in a wide parameter range
• Giant micropulse emission in the Vela pulsar at C band
• Origin of radio polarization in pulsar polar caps