We are delighted to announce that Einstein@Home has made its first discovery: a radio pulsar, found in data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Details are available in a paper published online by Science today. Science has given us permission to post a copy of the abstract and paper here. They are also on the Science website here. The manuscript is also in the arXiv preprint archive (use the PDF link in the top right corner).
A press-conference webcast about this first discovery is also available.
The name of the pulsar is PSR J2007+2722. It is a 40.8 Hz isolated pulsar, 17,000 light years distant in the plane of the Galaxy, and is most likely a Disrupted Recycled Pulsar (DRP). If so, it is the fastest DRP yet discovered.
The Einstein@Home volunteers whose computers found the pulsar with the highest significance are Chris and Helen Colvin, from Ames Iowa and Daniel Gebhardt, Musikinformatik, Universitaet Mainz.
Additional information about the discovery is available on our web pages. I will also talk about it at the London Citizen Cyberscience Summit on September 2nd.
We thank ALL Einstein@Home volunteers for their support, and look forward eagerly to our next discovery.
Bruce Allen, Director, Einstein@Home
August 12, 2010
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