IPTA 2026 Student Week — Workshop Programme & Materials

Pulsar Timing Array Student Workshop  |  June 2026, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Installation & Workshop Materials

Before working through the sessions below, set up your environment using the Virtual Machine (VM) guides and installation files linked here. Per-session slides and notebooks are linked further down. Large per-pulsar datasets and software containers used by the tutorials are not hosted here — they are already included in the VM. Recording links are still placeholders to be filled in once recordings are available.
VM installation guide (PDF)
Quickstart Full manual
VM installation files & README
Download files README
Day 1
Pulsars and Timing
Overview and Programme Discussion
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction to Radio Telescopes Lecture
Daniel Reardon
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction to Pulsars Lecture
Marisa Geyer
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction to Pulsar Timing Lecture
Mayuresh Surnis
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Tutorial on PSRCHIVE + Bonus activity Tutorial
Debabrata Deb & Hendrik Combrinck
▶ Recording — coming soon Tutorial guide (PDF) Walkthrough Cheatsheet
PSRCHIVE Python Notebook ⇩
Pulse Portraiture Notebook ⇩
Tutorial on timing with PINT & TEMPO2 + Bonus activity Tutorial
Deborah Good, Prerna Rana
▶ Recording — coming soon TEMPO2 guide (PDF)
1 — New Pulsars Notebook ⇩
2 — Known Pulsars Notebook ⇩
2.5 — IPTA Style Notebook ⇩
3 — Not Quite Noise Notebook ⇩
Bonus — guide & data Guide (PDF) Data & par files (zip)
Bonus — PINT intro Notebook ⇩
Bonus — Data Combination Notebook ⇩
Day 2
PTA Noise Modeling
Introduction to Bayesian Inference Lecture + Tutorial
Bjorn Larsen
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Bayesian Tutorial Notebook ⇩ Data
Introduction to Noise Analysis in PTAs Lecture
Abhimanyu Susobhanan
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction and tutorial on SPNA with DISCOVERY + Bonus activity Lecture + Tutorial
Daniel Reardon
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides Tutorial README
01 — Make feathers Notebook ⇩ Expected output
02 — Basic noise model Notebook ⇩ Expected output
03 — Custom noise model Notebook ⇩ Expected output
04 — Deterministic models Notebook ⇩ Expected output
05 — Bonus: hierarchical model Expected output
Tutorial on SPNA with ENTERPRISE + Bonus activity Tutorial
Valentina Di Marco, Aurélien Chalumeau, Nobleson Fernandez
▶ Recording — coming soon
Noise in the Wild Notebook ⇩
Tracking the Herd Notebook ⇩
Helper module Download (.py)
Day 3
PTA & Gravitational Wave Background
Introduction to GWs and PTAs Lecture
Sarah Vigeland
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction to GWB, HD curve & other GW signals in PTAs Lecture
Alberto Sesana
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Tutorial on GWB Search + Bonus activity Tutorial
Aurélien Chalumeau and colleagues
▶ Recording — coming soon Guide (PDF)
Notebook (VM version) Notebook ⇩
Notebook (standalone) Notebook ⇩
Introduction to IPTA Lecture
Joris Verbiest
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Writing an observing proposal Discussion
Lydia Guertin
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Day 4
Other Gravitational Wave Sources
Astrophysical Interpretation of the GWB Lecture
Hippolyte JH Quelquejay-Leclere
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Continuous Waves & Burst Signals in PTAs Lecture
Boris Goncharov
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Tutorial on CW Search + Bonus activity Tutorial
Anjana Ashok
▶ Recording — coming soon
The CW Hunt Notebook ⇩
The CW Hunt — Bonus Notebook ⇩
Pulsar data Download (zip)
New Physics in PTAs Lecture
Kai Schmitz
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Day 5
Multimessenger Astrophysics & More
Multimessenger Astrophysics Lecture
Caitlin Witt
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides
Introduction to GPTA Lecture
Serena Valtolina
▶ Recording — coming soon Slides