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Graham Doskoch

Mr

21/09/1998

53434

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+19083768337

331 Beechurst Avenue, Apt. 218
Morgantown, WV 26505
United States

Prof_Maura_McLaughlin

I’m a PhD student, an observational radio astronomer studying pulsars. I specialize in single pulse searches, ranging from giant pulses to rotating radio transients (RRATs) to fast radio bursts (FRBs). These compact objects are interesting in their own right but are also powerful tools to study the interstellar medium, the life cycles of massive stars, and low-frequency gravitational waves. Over the past two decades, our understanding of single pulse sources has grown to the point where we can perform statistical analyses of them. Continuing to do so in the future, however, will require increasingly powerful telescopes, such as the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China, the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA-2000) in the United States, and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

Many of these projects require international collaboration. I’m applying to attend the Forum because I believe it can help germinate such collaborations, particularly across disciplines. I would like to present work I’m finishing on a study of RRATs discovered at the Arecibo Observatory. Many of these RRATs were subsequently redetected by FAST, enabling a more robust analysis – an example of work that I believe matches the spirit of the Forum.

Postgraduate (PhD)

Astronomy

West Virginia University

Morgantown, West Virginia

University Provost Fellowship, West Virginia University (competitive fellowship for incoming PhD students)
H Arthur Weldon Prize, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University (scholarship for academic excellence)

Rotating radio transients (RRATs) are a poorly-understood class of pulsar, detected primarily through individual pulses. Their emission mechanism remains unknown, particularly because the number of well-studied RRATs is quite small. I am finishing a statistical analysis of eleven candidate RRATs and one fast radio burst (FRB) from the PALFA survey at the Arecibo Observatory. I performed single pulse searches on all sources and found that their single pulse properties are consistent with previously known RRATs. I am also finishing timing solutions for a subset of the sources, making them some of a small number of RRATs with timing solutions.

Interestingly, most of these candidate RRATs have subsequently been redetected by the Five-Hundred-Meter Spherical Aperture (FAST) telescope in periodicity searches, like normal pulsars, by the Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot (GPPS) survey. This indicates that many RRATs may simply be ordinary pulsars which are too dim for most telescopes to detect their typical emission – and not a separate class of objects. This presents a simple explanation for RRAT emission and motivates future observing campaigns of RRATs using FAST and other extremely sensitive telescopes.