The MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array -- A Census of Emission Properties and Timing Potential

Understand

MeerTime is a five-year Large Survey Project to time pulsars with MeerKAT, the 64-dish South African precursor to the Square Kilometre Array.

• The science goals for the programme include timing millisecond pulsars (MSPs) to high precision (< 1 $\mu$s) to study the Galactic MSP population and to contribute to global efforts to detect nanohertz gravitational waves with the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA).
• In order to plan for the remainder of the programme and to use the allocated time most efficiently, we have conducted an initial census with the MeerKAT &#34;L-band&#34; receiver of 189 MSPs visible to MeerKAT and here present their dispersion measures, polarization profiles, polarization fractions, rotation measures, flux density measurements, spectral indices, and timing potential.
• As all of these observations are taken with the same instrument (which uses coherent dedispersion, interferometric polarization calibration techniques, and a uniform flux scale), they present an excellent resource for population studies.