This award will support an observational program that will use a new high-cadence photon-counting device built by Dr. Welsh's group and now installed at the South African Large Telescope (SALT). The instrument is able to detect the time of arriving photons to microsecond accuracy, and will also detect their positions precisely. The research team plans to study the optical emission properties of millisecond pulsars and X-ray transients, stellar occultations by exoplanets and Kuiper Belt objects, and the eclipse behavior of magnetic cataclysmic variable star systems.
The technology used in this device is important in other fields of scientific study, such as for fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy of single molecules and macromolecules living in cell tissue. The use of this device also requires the development of ultrafast electronic processors. Finally, the instrument will be made available to the astronomical community as a facility instrument at SALT.
