Search for and study of pulsars with the Nançay Radio Telescope

International audienceSince the discovery of the first pulsar in 1967, over 2500 pulsars have been discovered. Pulsars enable a broad range of studies: from the study of the properties of the interstellar medium and of pulsar magnetospheres to tests of gravity in the strong-field regime and the characterisation of the cosmological gravitation wave background. These reasons are the main drive for searching for more pulsars. A blind pulsar survey, named SPAN512, was initiated with the Nançay Radio Telescope in 2012. Conducted at 1.4 GHz with a sampling time of 64μs and 500-kHz frequency channels, SPAN512 was designed to search for fast and distant pulsars in the Galactic plane. Here we describe the current status of the survey and present the latest discovery, PSR J2055+3829, a 2.08-ms pulsar in a black widow system