Aaron B. Pearlman
California Institute of Technology
Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics
1200 E California Blvd, MC 290-17
Pasadena, CA 91125
Cahill, Room 284
aaron.b.pearlman [at] caltech [dot] edu
Office: 626.395.3560

I am currently a Banting Prize Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill Space Institute (MSI) Prize Fellow, and a Fonds de Recherche du Quebec -- Nature et Technologies (FRQNT) Prize Fellow in the Department of Physics at McGill University and the Trottier Space Institute at McGill.

I was a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. My Ph.D. advisor was Professor Tom A. Prince.

Research Interests

Since 2021, I have been playing a leading role in the CHIME/FRB Outriggers Project, where I have been commissioning a transcontinental network of VLBI-capable telescopes dedicated to localizing CHIME-detected FRBs. This experiment will localize > 1,000 FRBs with a precision of approximately 50 milliarsecond precision over the next few years, which will both transform our understanding of FRBs and allow them to be used as cosmological probes and tracers of baryonic matter across the cosmos.

I've been playing a pivotal role in commissioning the analog instrumentation, digital instrumentation, VLBI calibration, and VLBI localization technologies that are being used for the experiment. In particular, I am leading the development of a novel VLBI calibration backend (which includes new VLBI/baseband recorders) at CHIME and each Outrigger telescope. This system uses Galactic radio pulsars and compact, steady-source radio VLBI calibrators to deliver high precision astrometric positions for CHIME-detected FRBs.

When I am not building and commissioning instruments, I enjoy studying local Universe FRBs in exquisite detail using radio telescopes and space-based telescopes across the full electromagnetic spectrum, with the aim of answering fundamental questions about their origins and emission mechanisms. I am also developing advanced algorithms and statistical techniques to search for novel behavior (e.g., ultra-short duration radio pulses, etc...) from FRBs and other classes of transients. I am also interested in innovative ways FRBs can be used for precision cosmology and studies of fundamental physics.

During my Ph.D., I led a deep search for radio pulsars orbiting the supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) at the center of the Milky Way galaxy at high radio frequencies (3-30 GHz) using the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) radio telescopes. I developed the data analysis tools and novel pulsar search algorithms that are used for pulsar and transient science with the DSN. During this time, I also became interested in studying radio magnetars and their links to FRBs. Toward the end of my Ph.D., I transitioned to focusing mainly on FRB science, but I maintain an interest in (and often work on) a wide range of topics, including compact objects, astrophysical transients, developing advanced algorithms for exploring new parameter spaces across time-domain astronomy, and novel applications of FRBs for cosmology and fundamental physics.

In the past, I have also worked on projects involving pulsar timing (in both the radio and X-ray bands), algorithms for detecting gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence sources with LIGO, IR and optical photometry, and spectral analyses of X-ray binaries.

Publications

My list of publications can be found here: Publication List

Education

Ph.D. Physics, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 2021

M.S. Physics, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 2019

B.S. Physics (Highest Departmental Honors), University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
B.S. Mathematics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
Minors in Computer Science and Astronomy
Honors College