Brian's Einstein@Home Stuff

  
     
  INTRODUCTION  
  LOG     COMPUTERS     CONFIG     RECEIVERS     TASKS  
 

 
 

 

My Computers... I have the following computers participating in Einstein@Home from October 2025-March 2026:


2600K
945GCM
NOLAN
Napple
Phenom
CrossFireX
 
 
 

BOINC Configuration... Depending on the system, I may change some settings.

 

The Receivers... I find the technology and science behind a project such as Einstein@Home to be quite fascinating. In the sections to the right I collate my little bit of research (c/o Wikipedia and other sources) into the receivers that are used to collect the signals used for the prospect.

Einstein@Home uses your computer's idle time to search for weak astrophysical signals from spinning neutron stars (often called pulsars).

Neutron stars are detected by their pulsed radio and gamma-ray emission as radio and/or gamma-ray pulsars. They also might be observable as continuous gravitational wave sources if they are rapidly rotating and non-axisymmetrically deformed. [read more here]

 

  

 MeerKAT radio telescope
 

 LIGO gravitational-wave detectors

 

Fermi gamma-ray satellite

 

 More
 

Tasks... When a computer is participating in the Einsten@Home project using the BOINC software it downloads and processes work units, aka Tasks.

Different Applications process these tasks. I group these together below and then provide further details:

 

Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, CPU/GPU) [BRP4]
Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, long, CPU) [BRP4G]
Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, arm64, CPU/GPU) [BRP4A]
Binary Radio Pulsar Search (MeerKAT, GPU) [BRP7]

 

Gamma-ray pulsar search #5 (CPU) [FGRP5]
Gamma-ray pulsar binary search #1 (GPU) [FGRPB1G]

 

All-Sky Gravitational Wave search on O3 (GPU) [O3AS]

 

Multi-Directional Gravitational Wave search on O4 (GPU) [O4MDG]
Multi-Directional Gravitational Wave search on O4 (CPU) [O4MD]

 

Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, CPU/GPU) [BRP4]
BRP4 is one of Einstein@Home’s core pulsar searches and uses radio data from the Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). It looks for pulsars in binary systems, where the pulsar’s orbital motion causes its radio pulses to shift in frequency over time. The search is computationally demanding because many possible orbital configurations must be tested, which is why BRP4 can run on both CPUs and GPUs. This search has been responsible for discovering numerous new pulsars, including millisecond and relativistic binaries.

Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, long, CPU) [BRP4G]
BRP4G is a CPU-only variant of the BRP4 search that focuses on longer orbital periods. These systems change their apparent pulse frequency more slowly, requiring longer coherent integrations and different analysis techniques. Because this type of search does not map as efficiently to GPU architectures, it is run exclusively on CPUs. BRP4G complements BRP4 by targeting binary systems that might be missed by shorter-orbit searches.

Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GBT, arm64, CPU/GPU) [BRP4A]
BRP4A is functionally similar to BRP4 but is specifically compiled for ARM64 architectures, such as Apple Silicon Macs and ARM-based Linux systems. Like BRP4, it analyzes Arecibo and GBT data to find binary pulsars, and it can use either CPUs or GPUs depending on the host system. This version allows Einstein@Home to take advantage of modern ARM hardware while contributing to the same scientific goals.

Binary Radio Pulsar Search (MeerKAT, GPU) [BRP7]
BRP7 is the newest generation of Einstein@Home’s binary radio pulsar searches and uses data from the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. Designed to run on GPUs, BRP7 takes advantage of MeerKAT’s high sensitivity and large sky coverage, especially in the southern hemisphere. The search targets binary pulsars, including faint and distant systems, and represents the continuation of Einstein@Home’s radio pulsar work following the loss of Arecibo. BRP7 enables volunteers to help analyze some of the most advanced radio telescope data currently available.

 

Gamma-ray pulsar search #5 (CPU) [FGRP5]
FGRP5 searches for isolated gamma-ray pulsars in data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Unlike radio pulsars, gamma-ray pulsars do not always have detectable radio emissions, so their discovery relies entirely on analyzing gamma-ray photon arrival times. This search is run on CPUs because it involves scanning large parameter spaces of spin frequency and spin-down rates rather than heavy floating-point operations that map well to GPUs. FGRP5 helps uncover pulsars that are invisible to radio telescopes, expanding the known pulsar population.

Gamma-ray pulsar binary search #1 (GPU) [FGRPB1G]
FGRPB1G extends gamma-ray pulsar searches to binary systems, where the pulsar’s orbital motion causes additional modulation of the signal. These searches are far more computationally intensive because many possible orbital configurations must be tested. To handle this complexity, FGRPB1G is optimized for GPUs, which can process large numbers of trial orbits in parallel. This search targets rare and exotic gamma-ray pulsars in binary systems, some of which may have no radio counterpart.

 

All-Sky Gravitational Wave search on O3 (GPU) [O3AS]
O3AS analyzes data from the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors. It performs an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves, which are expected from rapidly spinning, slightly asymmetric neutron stars. These signals are extremely weak and require searching across vast ranges of sky position, frequency, and frequency evolution. GPUs are used to efficiently process this enormous parameter space, making O3AS one of Einstein@Home’s most computationally demanding searches.

 

Multi-Directional Gravitational Wave search on O4 (GPU) [O4MDG]
O4MDG is the next-generation gravitational-wave search using data from LIGO’s fourth observing run (O4). Instead of scanning the sky uniformly, it uses multi-directional methods that target promising regions of parameter space more efficiently. The search focuses on continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars, using improved algorithms and GPU acceleration to increase sensitivity compared to earlier runs. O4MDG represents the current cutting edge of Einstein@Home’s gravitational-wave analysis.

Multi-Directional Gravitational Wave search on O4 (CPU) [O4MD]
O4MD is the CPU-only counterpart to O4MDG. It performs the same scientific search for continuous gravitational waves in O4 data but is designed for computers without suitable GPUs. While slower than the GPU version, O4MD allows a much broader range of volunteer hardware to contribute to the project, ensuring that Einstein@Home can make use of both CPU- and GPU-based computing resources.

 

Summary:

  • BRP4 / BRP4A → Arecibo + GBT data, CPU/GPU, main binary pulsar search

  • BRP4G → Arecibo + GBT data, CPU-only, longer orbital periods

  • BRP7 → MeerKAT data, GPU-focused, next-generation pulsar search

  • FGRP5 / FGRPB1G → gamma-ray pulsars from Fermi data (isolated vs. binary)

  • O3AS / O4MDG / O4MD → continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars using LIGO data

  • GPU searches focus on massive parallel calculations

  • CPU searches handle complex parameter scans that don’t parallelize as well

 

Click here for an essay I produced with ChatGPT that outlines various findings of the project (Jan. '26).