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I propose next to a) make sure that DJT, RWR, and PSR are on-board with what I'm doing and then b) talk to Michael Kramer. We have touched on these topics in the past and my impression is that he'll be good with it. But it's time to clarify.
("Michael" for me means Jodrell Bank + Westerbrok + Effelsburg. That is, I presume that he, Andrew, and Ben will come to some joint opinion. Furthermore, Paulo Freire now being in Bonn means that Michael could, in principle, conduct a laugh-test with this known Arecibo user.)
Note that the Americans are not timing large numbers of pulsars. Only the six at GBT from the MoU, to a good first approximation. We certainly want Fernando to keep pounding away at PSR J1930+1852 (the only one of the six that we haven't yet seen in gamma-rays) as well as any others he wants to do with us (e.g. PSR J1935+2025 that is a good candidate but not covered by the MoU).
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We'll also try to leverage the NRL/Bonn connection (my two students!) to see which Parkes sources Simon can back off on.
Follow-ups of LAT sources (blind search pulsars, and unidentified DC sources)
Paul's PSC MoU is about follow-ups using ephemerides from the LAT blind pulsar discoveries, specifically referring to Year 1 LAT proprietary data.
We no longer have exclusive access to the photon lists. But we're the best when it comes to
- blind search pulsar ephemerides
- detailed positions ; spectral shapes ; variability indices ; extension or not ; blazar-ness or not of the unidentified catalog DC sources.
We can pretty much keep the spirit of Paul's document, broadening the scope to include candidate positions for blind radio period searches, with the various figures-of-merit just mentioned.
And if/when they discover a new radio pulsar, we'll look for the gamma pulsations straight away!
Publication Policy
I'll begin with a few words from Simon (from same e-mail as above):
I also think minimising the changes to the MoU would be best. Are you thinking about splitting "discovery/upper limit" papers from "follow-up science" type papers? For the former case I suggest that as before all consortium members be allowed to sign. For the follow-up this is less clear - presumably these are Cat II papers and on specific objects (eg Vela) so perhaps only the people supplying the radio data should be on those papers. Just a thought. Again the same for searching - any discovery/upper limit should include all on the consortium.
The LAT-internal discussion about numbers of Cat I vs Cat II papers is independent of the above: we can decide to write a Cat II paper where all Consortium members are eligible.
We probably need to make a sort-of-clear statement to the Consortium about the criteria for papers to be 200 authors following Aous' lead, versus a smaller number with different lead authors.
I could use input from DJT RWR PSR ETC on this one.