Studying pulsars with the SKA and other new facilities

Abstract

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a proposed next generation radio telescope. Between now and 2005 this project is in a technology development and prototyping phase, with construction likely to begin in ~ 2010. This paper describes what the SKA may be like, its key features, the motivation for building it and where you can access more details about it. Its is important to see any new facility in context, so other new facilities are also discussed. Avenues for future extensibility of the SKA other telescopes are covered, with some emphasis on multiple beam systems. Some suggestions for useful pulsar experiments and pulsar searches strategies are summarised. A conclusion is that the SKA may not be the most cost effective way to search for pulsars and that a 128 beam receiver system on an Arecibo like telescope working between 1 and 5 GHz may be a more cost effective approach.