We describe system verification tests and early science results from the pulsar processor (PTUSE) developed for the newly commissioned 64-dish SARAO MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. MeerKAT is a high-gain ( ${\sim}2.8\,\mbox{K Jy}^{-1}$ ) low-system temperature ( ${\sim}18\,\mbox{K at }20\,\mbox{cm}$ ) radio array that currently operates at 580–1 670 MHz and can produce tied-array beams suitable for pulsar observations. This paper presents results from the MeerTime Large Survey Project and commissioning tests with PTUSE. Highlights include observations of the double pulsar $\mbox{J}0737{-}3039\mbox{A}$ , pulse profiles from 34 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from a single 2.5-h observation of the Globular cluster Terzan 5, the rotation measure of Ter5O, a 420-sigma giant pulse from the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR $\mbox{J}0540{-}6919$ , and nulling identified in the slow pulsar PSR J0633–2015. One of the key design specifications for MeerKAT was absolute timing errors of less than 5 ns using their novel precise time system. Our timing of two bright MSPs confirm that MeerKAT delivers exceptional timing. PSR $\mbox{J}2241{-}5236$ exhibits a jitter limit of $<4\,\mbox{ns h}^{-1}$ whilst timing of PSR $\mbox{J}1909{-}3744$ over almost 11 months yields an rms residual of 66 ns with only 4 min integrations. Our results confirm that the MeerKAT is an exceptional pulsar telescope. The array can be split into four separate sub-arrays to time over 1 000 pulsars per day and the future deployment of S-band (1 750–3 500 MHz) receivers will further enhance its capabilities.

The Square Kilometre Array will be an amazing instrument for pulsar astronomy. While the full SKA will be sensitive enough to detect all pulsars in the Galaxy visible from Earth, already with SKA1, pulsar searches will discover enough pulsars to increase the currently known population by a factor of four, no doubt including a range of amazing unknown sources. Real time processing is needed to deal with the 60 PB of pulsar search data collected per day, using a signal processing pipeline required to perform more than 10 POps. Here we present the suggested design of the pulsar search engine for the SKA and discuss challenges and solutions to the pulsar search venture.

During 2016 February, CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science and the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy installed, commissioned, and carried out science observations with a phased array feed receiver system on the 64-m diameter Parkes radio telescope. Here, we demonstrate that the phased array feed can be used for pulsar observations and we highlight some unique capabilities. We demonstrate that the pulse profiles obtained using the phased array feed can be calibrated and that multiple pulsars can be simultaneously observed. Significantly, we find that an intrinsic polarisation leakage of −31 dB can be achieved with a phased array feed beam offset from the centre of the field of view. We discuss the possibilities for using a phased array feed for future pulsar observations and for searching for fast radio bursts with the Parkes and Effelsberg telescopes.

Radio pulsars in relativistic binary systems are unique tools to study the curved space-time around massive compact objects. The discovery of a pulsar closely orbiting the super-massive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy, Sgr A⋆, would provide a superb test-bed for gravitational physics. To date, the absence of any radio pulsar discoveries within a few arc minutes of Sgr A⋆ has been explained by one principal factor: extreme scattering of radio waves caused by inhomogeneities in the ionized component of the interstellar medium in the central 100 pc around Sgr A⋆. Scattering, which causes temporal broadening of pulses, can only be mitigated by observing at higher frequencies. Here we describe recent searches of the Galactic centre region performed at a frequency of 18.95 GHz with the Effelsberg radio telescope.