The SPOTLIGHT Pulsar Search Pipeline: A GPU-Accelerated FFT Approach

Abstract

We present the pulsar search component of SPOTLIGHT (Survey for sPoradic radiO bursTs via a commensaL multI-beam Gpu-powered Hpc at the gmrT), a GPU-accelerated commensal backend operating at the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT). While SPOTLIGHT is primarily designed for real-time detection and localisation of fast radio bursts (FRBs), it simultaneously records a subset of beamformed data products for periodicity searches without requiring dedicated telescope time. To process the large data volumes generated by the survey, we have developed a scalable FFT-based pulsar search pipeline that combines radio-frequency interference mitigation, GPU-accelerated dedispersion and periodicity searches, multi-beam candidate sifting, efficient folding and machine-learning classification. Using population synthesis and archival uGMRT observations, we estimate that a fully operational SPOTLIGHT survey with 160 PC and one IA beam could discover $\sim$ 450 new pulsars, probing both high-sky coverage and faint pulsars over three and a half years of commensal observations. The pipeline has been validated on GMRT Cycle 48 and 49 observations (i.e. April 2025 to Mar 2026), successfully re-detecting numerous known pulsars with a wide range of Period, DM and flux densities, and is currently operational for SPOTLIGHT commensal data processing. We describe the SPOTLIGHT observing system, pulsar survey design, search parameter space, candidate-selection strategy, current status, and future developments. SPOTLIGHT demonstrates the scientific potential of commensal pulsar surveys and serves as a pathfinder for real-time, large-scale pulsar and transient searches in the SKA era.