Pathfinding Pulsar Observations with the CVN Incorporating the FAST

• Published in: Chinese physics letters 2024-11, Vol.41 (11), p.117501
• Main Authors: Yan, Zhen, Shen, Zhiqiang, Jiang, Peng, Zhang, Bo, Zhang, Haiyan, Cui, Lang, Luo, Jintao, Chen, Rurong, Jiang, Wu, Zhang, Hua, Wu, De, Zhao, Rongbing, Yuan, Jianping, Hu, Yue, Wu, Yajun, Xia, Bo, Li, Guanghui, Rao, Yongnan, Chen, Chenyu, Wang, Xiaowei, Ding, Hao, Liu, Yongpeng, Zhang, Fuchen, Jiang, Yongbin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0256-307X; 1741-3540
• DOI: 10.1088/0256-307X/41/11/117501

The importance of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) for pulsar research is becoming increasingly prominent and receiving more and more attention. We present the pathfinding pulsar observation results with the Chinese VLBI Network (CVN) incorporating the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). On MJD 60045 (11th April 2023), PSRs B0919+06 and B1133+16 were observed with the phase-referencing mode in the L-band using four radio telescopes (FAST, TianMa, Haoping, and Nanshan) and correlated with the pulsar binning mode of the distributed FX-style software correlator in Shanghai. After further data processing with the NRAO Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS), we detected these two pulsars and fitted their current positions with accuracy at the milliarcsecond level. By comparison, our results show significantly better agreement with predicted values based on historical VLBI observations than those with previous timing observations, as pulsar astrometry with the VLBI provides a more direct and model-independent method for accurately obtaining related parameters.