The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey for Pulsars and Fast Transients

The LOFAR Tied Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS) is an ongoing all northern sky survey for pulsars and transients. It is one of the first large scale pulsar surveys conducted at an observing frequency below 200 MHz. The unique set-up of the survey is the simultaneous formation of 222 beams for each survey pointing by coherently adding signals from the central 6 LOFAR stations. This represents the first SKA-like pulsar survey. As of 12 September 2017, the survey has completed 1456 pointings, more than two-thirds of the total. The survey has discovered 61 new pulsars via Fourier-based periodicity searches and a further 5 via single pulse searches. I present the survey approach and distinctive features including a discussion of an improved machine learning classifier used to identify the best candidates produced by the pipeline for further investigation. I present a summary of the discoveries so far including the first binary pulsar and the pulsar with the longest spin period of 23.5 s.