DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN PULSARS AND TRANSIENT RFI IN THE TIME DOMAIN

Radio frequency interference (RFI) is an increasing concern for radio astronomers as demand for spectrum grows and new technologies are adopted. A particularly pernicious type of RFI is unintentional RFI. Unintentional RFI is generated by devices such as mechanical relays as a by product of their normal operation. This type of RFI is difficult to identify because it is usually transient, intermittent and broadband. Some important astronomical sources, such as pulsars, also emit transient signals; thus there is a need to distinguish between these sources and RFI. Here we show how a time domain RFI classification method investigated previously can be adapted to distinguish between pulsar signals and transient RFI. We demonstrate this by applying the method to time domain recordings of transient RFI events and pulsar observation data.