Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-w7rtg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-20T07:30:01.752Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Finding Pulsar Variability in 50 Years of Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

Paul Brook
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA email: [email protected]
Aris Karastergiou
Affiliation:
Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Fifty years of pulsar data has led to the discovery of emission and rotation variability on timescales of months and years; we have developed techniques to identify this long timescale variability. Individual observations may be too noisy to identify subtle changes in a pulse profile; we use Gaussian process regression to model noisy observations and produce a continuous map of pulse profile variability. Generally, multiple observing epochs are required to obtain the pulsar spin frequency derivative. Gaussian process regression is, therefore, also used to monitor this rate of spindown. We have applied variability detection techniques to both millisecond and long period pulsar datasets. I will discuss the techniques used and present the most interesting results from the pulsars analysed.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018 

References

Brook, P. R., Karastergiou, A., Buchner, S., Roberts, S. J., Keith, M. J., Johnston, S., & Shannon, R. M., 2014, ApJ, 780, L31Google Scholar
Brook, P. R., Karastergiou, A., Johnston, S., Kerr, M., Shannon, R. M., & Roberts, S. J., 2016, MNRAS, 456, 1374Google Scholar
Hobbs, G., Lyne, A., & Kramer, M., 2010, MNRAS, 402, 1027Google Scholar
Kramer, M., Lyne, A. G., O’Brien, J. T., Jordan, C. A., & Lorimer, D. R., 2006, Science, 312, 549Google Scholar
Lyne, A., Hobbs, G., Kramer, M., Stairs, I. H., & Stappers, B. W., 2010, Science, 329, 408Google Scholar
McLaughlin, M. A., 2013, Class. Quantum Grav., 30, 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar