High Time Resolution Universe

The High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) is an all-sky survey for pulsars and radio transients at a frequency of 1400 MHz.

The Southern Hemisphere is being observed with the Parkes Multi-Beam system, the Northern Hemisphere is being observed with the Effelsberg 7-beam system. It is expected that the survey sensitivity will be similar for  both hemispheres.

These surveys will have a much higher frequency and time resolution than previous surveys like the Parkes Multi-Beam Survey. Because of this, they will suffer much less from dispersive smearing and will therefore be able to detect a much larger number of millisecond pulsars, particularly near the Galactic plane, where we expect the most exciting binary systems and a much larger population of pulsars. These surveys will likely find hundreds of millisecond pulsars, which are great laboratories for the study of fundamental physics, gravitational astronomy and astrophysics in general. Furthermore, the Effelsberg part of the survey (HTRU-North) will survey the whole Northern Hemisphere for the first time in 30 years,allowing a new high-sensitive view onto this part of the sky. The Northern Hemisphere surveys have a great advantage that new discoveries can be followed up with a large variety of radio telescopes, which maximizes scientific output.

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