Finding pulsars with LOFAR

J. van Leeuwen¹ and B. W. Stappers²

¹ Stichting ASTRON, PO Box 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands e-mail: leeuwen@astron.nl
² Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Received: 14 August 2009
Accepted: 23 October 2009

Abstract

We investigate the number and type of pulsars that will be discovered with the low-frequency radio telescope LOFAR. We consider different search strategies for the Galaxy, for globular clusters and for other galaxies. We show that a 25-day all-sky Galactic survey can find approximately 900 new pulsars, probing the local pulsar population to a deep luminosity limit. For targets of smaller angular size such as globular clusters and galaxies many LOFAR stations can be combined coherently, to make use of the full sensitivity. Searches of nearby northern-sky globular clusters can find new low luminosity millisecond pulsars. Giant pulses from Crab-like extragalactic pulsars can be detected out to over a Mpc.