LOFAR: A powerful and flexible observatory for pulsars and fast transients

Abstract

The Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a sparse aperture array radio telescope that can observe from 10–240 MHz — i.e. the lowest radio frequencies observable from Earth. Construction of the LOFAR core is all but complete and regular observations of pulsars and other rapidly varying radio sources have begun. With it's huge field-of-view (FoV), flexible multi-beaming capabilities, and large collecting area, LOFAR promises to revolutionize observations of transient radio phenomena with durations of nanoseconds to years. Here we highlight a few of the most recent LOFAR pulsar observations, which demonstrate that the system is already producing science-quality data.