A 1400-MHz pilot search for young pulsars

We have used the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope to conduct a 1400-MHz (la mbda 21-cm) search for young and rapidly rotating radio pulsars along a 2 d eg(2) strip of the northern Galactic plane defined by 28 degrees less than or equal to l less than or equal to 30 degrees and \ b \ less than or equal to 0.5 degrees. This region lies close to the Scutum spiral arm which is a lready known to contain a number of radio and X-ray pulsars. The search was nominally sensitive to pulsars with 1400-MHz flux densities above 0.3 mJy; this represents a threefold improvement in sensitivity over all previous s earches of this region of the Galaxy. Four new long-period pulsars were dis covered as a result of this survey. All three previously known pulsars in t his region were also detected. The four new pulsars are relatively young (< 0.5 Myr), weak(< 1 mJy) sources with dispersion measures in the range 170- 910 cm(-3) pc. None of the newly-discovered pulsars are associated with cat alogued supernova remnants.