Establish the cause of the earlier non-detection of PSR J0103−72

Establish the cause of the previous non-detection of PSR J0103−72 in the archival Small Magellanic Cloud survey data, including whether radio-frequency interference, candidate-selection thresholds, or the large number of candidates requiring visual inspection prevented its identification.

Background

The paper reports that PSR J0103−72 was bright enough to lie above the sensitivity limit of the original survey and could be recovered using both fast-folding and Fourier-transform searches. Its earlier absence therefore cannot be attributed simply to the choice between those two search methods.

The authors suggest that heavy radio-frequency interference and the large candidate volume may have contributed to the missed detection. However, the available processing history does not allow the specific reason for the original non-detection to be identified.