DataIntensive Processing for a Pulsar Virtual Observatory

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• Data-Intensive Processing for a Pulsar Virtual
  Observatory
• June 17 2008 Liverpool
• Astronet Infrastructure Roadmap Symposium
• John Brooke - University of Manchester

http//www.esnw.ac.uk
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E-Science North-West (ESNW) research
Bio-Medical
Physics and Astronomy
Social science
Chemistry
Semantic and Knowledge Technologies
Database Technologies
Generic Grid and e-Science technologies
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North-West Gridadvancing Grid Technologies and
Applications
http//www.nw-grid.ac.uk
Hooks to other Grid consortia NGS, WRG
Acknowledgement Rob Allan STFC Daresbury and
NW-GRID consortium.
Top end HPCx
Applications and industry
Pharma, meds, bio, social, env, astro, CCPs
Portals, client toolkits, active overlays
Mid range NW-GRID and local clusters
User interfaces
Sensor networks and experimental facilities
Advanced Network technology
Desktop pools Condor etc.
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The Jodrell Bank Pulsar Search Code

• Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory searches for fast
  pulsars in binary systems.
• In order to obtain a high signal-to-noise ratio
  they observe across a wide band of radio
  frequencies and integrate.
• However the interstellar medium is dispersive
  (the speed of the radio waves depends on
  frequency)
• The parameter space is huge, interstellar
  dispersion, orbital parameters, acceleration are
  unknown.
• In searching for candidates we have a very
  data-intensive processing task and then the use
  of intuition in selecting candidates for further
  observation.

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Dispersion across RF band
Diagram supplied by Michael Kramer Jodrell Bank
Observatory
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Pulsar Virtual Observatory process
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Scheduling pipeline
Data
Master
Slaves
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Architecture for distributed data processing
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Current status

• Rewrite of pulsar detection tools in Michael
  Keiths PhD thesis. Re-analysis of the Parkes
  Multi-beam Survey led to the discovery of 30 new
  pulsars and re-analysis of the Perseus arm survey
  produced 10 more.
• An architecture for distributing the searching
  algorithms over clusters and computational grids
  has been developed in the Grid1D project. Details
  at
• http//www.rcs.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects
  /pulsargrid/
• An extensive search for binary pulsars has been
  carried out on NorthGrid. The results are
  currently being analyzed.

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SKA pulsar survey
expect 20000 psrs incl. 1000 MSPs and
BH-pulsar binaries
Thanks to Michael Kramer JBO
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Pulsar Virtual Observatory

• At present it still requires expertise in pulsar
  astronomy to use the searching methods.
• The ultimate aim is to automate this process as
  much as possible since pulsar searching will
  become harder to find fainter pulsars in regions
  of high dispersion measure.
• Pattern recognition techniques may be able to be
  utilised in the candidate identification stage.
• Pulsar searching can be linked with observations
  at other wavelengths, e.g. X-ray.