All-sky, broadband, coherent searches for gravitational-wave pulsars are
restricted by limited computational resources. Minimizing the number of
templates required to cover the search parameter space, of sky position and
frequency evolution, is one important way to reduce the computational cost of a
search. We demonstrate a practical algorithm which, for the first time,
achieves template placement with a minimal number of templates for an all-sky
search, using the reduced supersky parameter-space metric of Wette and Prix
[Phys. Rev. D 88, 123005 (2013)]. The metric prescribes a constant template
density in the signal parameters, which permits that templates be placed at the
vertices of a lattice. We demonstrate how to ensure complete coverage of the
parameter space, including in particular at its boundaries. The number of
templates generated by the algorithm is compared to theoretical estimates, and
to previous predictions by Brady et al. [Phys. Rev. D 57, 2101 (1998)]. The
algorithm may be applied to any search parameter space with a constant template
density, which includes semicoherent searches and searches targeting known
low-mass X-ray binaries.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figure
