A survey of nulling pulsars using the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope

Abstract Several pulsars show sudden cessation of pulsed emission, which is known as pulsar nulling. In this paper, the nulling behaviour of 15 pulsars is presented. The nulling fractions of these pulsars, along with the degree of reduction in the pulse energy during the null phase, are reported for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2012-08, Vol.424 (2), p.1197-1205
Main Authors: Gajjar, Vishal, Joshi, B. C., Kramer, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Poisson distribution
Pulsars
pulsars: general
Radio telescopes
stars: neutron
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Summary:Abstract Several pulsars show sudden cessation of pulsed emission, which is known as pulsar nulling. In this paper, the nulling behaviour of 15 pulsars is presented. The nulling fractions of these pulsars, along with the degree of reduction in the pulse energy during the null phase, are reported for these pulsars. A quasi-periodic null-burst pattern is reported for PSR J1738−2330. The distributions of lengths of the null and burst phases as well as the typical nulling time-scales are estimated for eight strong pulsars. The nulling pattern of four pulsars with similar nulling fraction are found to be different from each other, suggesting that the fraction of null pulses does not quantify the nulling behaviour of a pulsar in full detail. Analysis of these distributions also indicates that while the null and burst pulses occur in groups, the underlying distribution of the interval between a transition from the null phase to the burst phase and vice versa appears to be similar to that of a stochastic Poisson point process.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21296.x