Northern Cross Radio Telescope

"Searches for millisecond pulsars conducted up to now were strongly biased against the detection of periodicities near or below the period value 1.5 ms or the original millisecond pulsar B1937+21. This value is remarkably close to the limiting period of neutron stars predicted by the so-called ``stiff'' equation of state of the ultradense matter. On the other hand, other realistic equations of state, such as the ``soft'' one, predict a much lower limiting spin period (~0.6 ms) for a rotating neutron star - a range that was never searched by radioastronomers. So, a sensitive search for pulsars in the sub-millisecond period range can be used to put constraints on the equation of state of matter at nuclear densities. Triggered by these considerations, we constructed equipment, including an online data-processing facility, specifically designed to undertake a large scale survey of the galactic field for sub-millisecond pulsars, up to a limiting spin period of 0.15 ms. We discuss the main characteristics of the pulsar equipment and the survey plan."

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