本文采用一种新的时域分析方法，研究了无线电脉冲到达时间随机变化的统计特性。该方法分两步进行。首先，我们使用高通滤波器减去低频漂移。其次，我们计算滤波数据的离散关联函数。作为测量相关性的补充方法，我们引入了一个统计量，该统计量测量了数据相对于时间转换数据的分散度。这里提出的分析方法是强大的，一般有用的研究到达时间的变化接近平均采样间隔的时间尺度。我们将这些方法应用于32颗恒星的定时数据。在两个射电天文台中，PSR B1133+16和B1933+16，我们发现，在10 - 20 d的时间尺度上，到达时间的波动与弛豫过程的明显特征相关。虽然这种弛豫响应可能是磁层的起源，我们认为，阻尼之间的中子星地壳和内部液体是一个更可能的解释。在这种解释下，我们的结果提供了第一个证据独立于脉冲星自旋毛刺的差异旋转中子星。PSR B 0950 +08显示了可能与模式切换相关的准周期振荡的证据。
英文摘要：
We study statistical properties of stochastic variations in pulse arrival times, timing noise, in radio pulsars using a new analysis method applied in the time domain. The method proceeds in two steps. First, we subtract low-frequency wander using a high-pass filter. Second, we calculate the discrete correlation function of the filtered data. As a complementary method for measuring correlations, we introduce a statistic that measures the dispersion of the data with respect to the data translated in time. The analysis methods presented here are robust and of general usefulness for studying arrival time variations over timescales approaching the average sampling interval. We apply these methods to timing data for 32 pulsars. In two radio pulsars, PSRs B1133+16 and B1933+16, we find that fluctuations in arrival times are correlated over timescales of 10 - 20 d with the distinct signature of a relaxation process. Though this relaxation response could be magnetospheric in origin, we argue that damping between the neutron star crust and interior liquid is a more likely explanation. Under this interpretation, our results provide the first evidence independent from pulsar spin glitches of differential rotation in neutron stars. PSR B0950+08, shows evidence for quasi-periodic oscillations that could be related to mode switching.
The recent revelation that there are correlated period derivative and pulse shape changes in pulsars has dramatically changed our understanding of timing noise as well as the relationship between the radio emission and the properties of the magnetosphere as a whole. Using Gaussian processes we are able to model timing and emission variability using a regression technique that imposes no functional form on the data. We revisit the pulsars first studied by Lyne et al. (2010). We not only confirm the emission and rotational transitions revealed therein, but reveal further transitions and periodic…
Young pulsars deviate from a perfectly regular spin-down by two non-deterministic phenomena: impulsive glitches and timing noise. Both phenomena are interesting per se, and may provide insights into the superfluid properties of neutron stars, but they also act as a barrier to high-precision pulsar timing and gravitational wave experiments. We study a minimal stochastic model to describe the spin-down of a multicomponent neutron star, with fluctuations in both the internal and external torques. The power spectral density and timing noise strength of this kind of model can be obtained analytical…
X-ray flux and pulse period fluctuations in an accretion-powered pulsar convey important information about the disk-magnetosphere interaction. It is shown that simultaneous flux and period measurements can be analysed with a Kalman filter based on the standard magnetocentrifugal accretion torque to generate accurate time-dependent estimates of three hidden state variables, which fluctuate stochastically and cannot be measured directly: the mass accretion rate, the Maxwell stress at the disk-magnetosphere boundary, and the radiative efficiency of accretion onto the stellar surface. The inferred…
We performed simultaneous observations at 326.5 MHz with the Ooty Radio Telescope and at 326, 610 and 1308 MHz with the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope for a sample of 12 pulsars, where frequency dependent single pulse behaviour was reported. The single pulse sequences were analysed with fluctuation analysis, sensitive to both the average fluctuation properties (using longitude resolved fluctuation spectrum and two-dimensional fluctuation spectrum) as well as temporal changes in these (using sliding two-dimensional fluctuation spectrum ) to establish concurrent changes in subpulse drifting ove…
We present coordinated Chandra X-ray Observatory and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array observations of the transitional millisecond pulsar PSR J1023+0038 in its low-luminosity accreting state. The unprecedented five hours of strictly simultaneous X-ray and radio continuum coverage for the first time unambiguously show a highly reproducible, anti-correlated variability pattern. The characteristic switches from the X-ray high mode into a low mode are always accompanied by a radio brightening with duration that closely matches the X-ray low mode interval. This behavior cannot be explained by a cano…
We investigate the impact of noise processes on high-precision pulsar timing. Our analysis focuses on the measurability of the second spin frequency derivative $\ddotν$. This $\ddotν$ can be induced by several factors including the radial velocity of a pulsar. We use Bayesian methods to model the pulsar times-of-arrival in the presence of red timing noise and dispersion measure variations, modelling the noise processes as power laws. Using simulated times-of-arrival that both include red noise, dispersion measure variations and non-zero $\ddotν$ values, we find that we are able to recover the …
We calculate detailed modification of pulses from a pulsar arising from the effects of phase transition induced density fluctuations on the pulsar moment of inertia. We represent general statistical density fluctuations using a simple model where the initial moment of inertia tensor of the pulsar (taken to be diagonal here) is assumed to get random additional contributions for each of its component which are taken to be Gaussian distributed with certain width characterized by the strength of density fluctuations $ε$. Using sample values of $ε$, (and the pulsar deformation parameter $η$) we num…
The gravitational pull of a large number of asteroids perturbs a pulsar's motion to a degree that is detectable through precision timing of millisecond pulsars. The result is a low-frequency, correlated noise process, similar in form to the red timing noise known to affect canonical pulsars, or to the signal expected from a stochastic gravitational-wave background. Motivated by the observed fact that many millisecond pulsars are in binary systems, we describe the ways in which the presence of a binary companion to the pulsar would affect the signal produced by an asteroid belt. The primary eff…
A statistical model for the polarization of pulsar radio emission is enhanced to account for the heavy modulation of the emission, the possible covariance of the Stokes parameters, and the observed asymmetries in the distributions of total intensity, polarization, and fractional polarization by treating the intensities of the orthogonal polarization modes as exponential random variables. The model is used to derive theoretical distributions to compare with what is observed. The resulting distributions are unimodal and generally asymmetric. The unimodality arises from the model's fundamental as…
A large sample of pulsars was observed as part of the Meterwavelength Single-pulse Polarimetric Emission Survey. We carried out a detailed fluctuation spectral analysis which revealed periodic features in 46% pulsars including 22 pulsars where drifting characteristics were reported for the first time. The pulsar population can be categorized into three distinct groups, pulsars which show systematic drift motion within the pulse window, the pulsars showing no systematic drift but periodic amplitude fluctuation and pulsars with no periodic variations. We discovered the dependence of the drifting…
We investigate aperiodic X-ray flux variability in accreting highly magnetized neutron stars - X-ray pulsars (XRPs). The X-ray variability is largely determined by mass accretion rate fluctuations at the NS surface, which replicate accretion rate fluctuations at the inner radius of the accretion disc. The variability at the inner radius is due to fluctuations arising all over the disc and propagating inwards under the influence of viscous diffusion. The inner radius varies with mean mass accretion rate and can be estimated from the known magnetic field strength and accretion luminosity of XRPs…
Using \emph{RXTE}, \emph{Chandra}, \emph{XMM-Newton} and \emph{Swift} observations, we for the first time construct the power spectra and torque noise strengths of magnetars. For some of the sources, we measure strong red noise on timescales months to years which might be a consequence of their outbursts. We compare noise strengths of magnetars with those of radio pulsars by investigating possible correlations of noise strengths with spin-down rate, magnetic field and age. Using these correlations, we find that magnetar noise strengths are obeying similar trends with radio pulsars. On the cont…
In this study, we examine the long term torque noise fluctuations of persistent Xray binaries Her X-1, Vela X-1, GX 301-2, CEN X-3, 4U 1538-53, OAO 1657-415 and 4U 1626-67 using the historical pulse frequency measurements provided by CGRO/BATSE and Fermi/GBM. We find that known disk-fed sources exhibit $1/ω^{2}$ red noise component in their power density spectra which is saturated over long timescales. On the other hand, wind-fed sources form a clear white noise component and the wind-fed sources with occasional transient disk formation imprint $1/ω$ type flicker noise. We discuss their long-t…
Be/$γ$-ray binaries comprise a confirmed or presumptive pulsar orbiting a Be star and emit luminous $γ$-rays. Non-thermal emissions are thought to arise from synchrotron radiation and inverse-Compton (IC) scattering in the shock where the pulsar wind is terminated by the stellar outflow. We study wind interactions and shock radiations from such systems and show that the bimodal structures observed in keV/TeV light curves are caused by enhanced synchrotron radiation and IC scattering during disc passages. We use a simple radiation model to reproduce orbital modulations of keV X-ray and TeV $γ$-…
Cyclotron resonance scattering features observed in the spectra of some X-ray pulsars show significant changes of the line centroid energy with the pulsar luminosity. Whereas for bright sources above the so called critical luminosity these variations are established to be connected with the appearance of the high accretion column above the neutron star surface, at low, sub-critical luminosities the nature of the variations (but with the opposite sign) has not been discussed widely. We argue here that the cyclotron line is formed when the radiation from a hotspot propagates through the plasma f…
Pulsar timing is a technique that uses the highly stable spin periods of neutron stars to investigate a wide range of topics in physics and astrophysics. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use sets of extremely well-timed pulsars as a Galaxy-scale detector with arms extending between Earth and each pulsar in the array. These challenging experiments look for correlated deviations in the pulsars' timing that are caused by low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) traversing our Galaxy. PTAs are particularly sensitive to GWs at nanohertz frequencies, which makes them complementary to other space- and grou…
Radio pulsar PSR B1946+35 is a classical example of a core/cone triple pulsar where the observer's line-of-sight cuts the emission beam centrally. In this paper we perform a detailed single-pulse polarimetric analysis of B1946+35 using sensitive Arecibo archival and new observations at 1.4 and 4.6 GHz to re-establish the pulsar's classification wherein a pair of inner conal "outriders" surround a central core component. The new 1.4 GHz observation consisted of a long single pulse sequence of 6678 pulses, and its fluctuation spectral analysis revealed that the pulsar shows a time-varying amplit…
With the ever-increasing sensitivity and timing baselines of modern radio telescopes, a growing number of pulsars are being shown to exhibit transitions in their rotational and radio emission properties. In many of these cases, the two are correlated with pulsars assuming a unique spin-down rate ($\dotν$) for each of their specific emission states. In this work we revisit 17 radio pulsars previously shown to exhibit spin-down rate variations. Using a Gaussian process regression (GPR) method to model the timing residuals and the evolution of the profile shape, we confirm the transitions already…
The Large European Array for Pulsars (LEAP) is a European Pulsar Timing Array project that combines the Lovell, Effelsberg, Nançay, Sardinia, and Westerbork radio telescopes into a single tied-array, and makes monthly observations of a set of millisecond pulsars (MSPs). The overview of our experiment is presented in Bassa et al. (2016). Baseband data are recorded at a central frequency of 1396 MHz and a bandwidth of 128 MHz at each telescope, and are correlated offline on a cluster at Jodrell Bank Observatory using a purpose-built correlator, detailed in Smits et al. (2017). LEAP offers a subs…
Measuring the magnetic dipole moment and magnetospheric fluctuations of accretion-powered pulsars in the Small Magellanic Cloud with an unscented Kalman filter
提出用无迹卡尔曼滤波器跟踪 X 射线流量与脉冲周期时间序列，打破辐射效率和吸积率简并，估计小麦哲伦云 24 个脉冲星的磁偶极矩及盘—磁层涨落。
We report a detailed study of subpulse drifting in four long period pulsars. These pulsars were observed in the Meterwavelength Single-pulse Polarimetric Emission Survey and the presence of phase modulated subpulse drifting was reported in each case. We have carried out longer duration and more sensitive observations lasting 7000-12000 periods, between frequency range of 306 and 339 MHz. The drifting features were characterised in great detail including the phase variations across the pulse window. In two pulsars J0820$-$1350 and J1720$-$2933 the phases changed steadily across the pulse window…
OAO 1657-415 is an atypical supergiant X-ray binary among wind-fed and disk-fed systems, showing alternate spin-up/spin-down intervals lasting on the order of tens of days. We study different torque states of OAO 1657-415 based on the spin history monitored by {\it Fermi}/GBM, together with fluxes from {\it Swift}/BAT and {\it MAXI}/GSC. Its spin frequency derivatives are well correlated with {\it Swift}/BAT fluxes during rapid spin-up episodes, anti-correlated with {\it Swift}/BAT fluxes during rapid spin-down episodes, and not correlated in between. The orbital profile of spin-down episodes …
We present average flux density measurements of 151 radio pulsars at 1.4 GHz with the Parkes 'Murriyang' radio telescope. We recommend our results be included in the next version of the ATNF pulsar catalogue. The large sample of pulsars together with their wide dispersion measure (DM) range make this data set useful for studying variability of flux density, pulsar spectra, and interstellar medium (ISM). We derive the modulation indices and structure-function from the flux density time series for 95 and 54 pulsars, respectively. We suggest the modulation index also be included in the next versi…
Several conjectures have been put forward to explain the RRATs, the newest subclass of neutron stars, and their connections to other radio pulsars. This work discusses these conjectures in the context of the characteristic properties of the RRAT population. Contrary to expectations, it is seen that - a) the RRAT population is statistically un-correlated with the nulling pulsars, and b) the RRAT phenomenon is unlikely to be related to old age or death-line proximity. It is perhaps more likely that the special emission property of RRATs is a signature of them being later evolutionary phases of o…
We have used the Nanshan 25-m Radio Telescope at Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory to obtain timing observations of 87 pulsars from 2002 July to 2014 March. Using the "Cholesky" timing analysis method we have determined positions and proper motions for 48 pulsars, 24 of which are improved positions compared to previously published values. We also present the first published proper motions for nine pulsars and improved proper motions for 21 pulsars using pulsar timing and position comparison method. The pulsar rotation parameters are derived and are more accurate than previously published value…
It is an open question whether glitch activity in individual pulsars varies on decadal time-scales. The Crab pulsar has experienced 23 spin-up glitches in the last 36 years, interrupting an otherwise monotonic deceleration. A homogeneous Poisson process, i.e. a process with constant rate, is not sufficient to describe the time-ordered distribution of glitch epochs in the Crab pulsar. There are signs of clustering at the $2σ$ level when testing with Ripley's $K$ function. Two alternative, inhomogeneous models with one and two step-wise rate changes are found to have higher relative evidence (Ba…
Any unambiguous detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background by a pulsar timing array will rest on the measurement of a characteristic angular correlation between pulsars. The ability to measure this correlation will depend on the geometry of the array. However, spatially correlated sources of noise, such as errors in the planetary ephemeris or clock errors, can produce false-positive correlations. The severity of this contamination will also depend on the geometry of the array. This paper quantifies these geometric effects with a spherical harmonic analysis of the pulsar timing res…
The extremely high brightness temperatures of pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs) require their radiation mechanisms to be coherent. Coherent curvature radiation by bunches has been long discussed as the mechanism for radio pulsars and recently for FRBs. Assuming that bunches are already generated in pulsar magnetospheres, we calculate the spectrum of coherent curvature radiation under a three-dimensional magnetic field geometry. Different from previous works assuming parallel trajectories and a mono-energetic energy distribution of electrons, we consider a bunch characterized by its length, …
Synchronous X-ray and Radio Mode Switches: a Rapid Global Transformation of the Pulsar Magnetosphere
脉冲星发射低频无线电波，直到高能伽马射线，这些伽马射线产生于从表面到磁层边缘的任何地方。因此，检测多波长发射中的相关模式变化是理解这些发射位点之间的物理关系的关键。通过同步观测，我们探测到PSR B 0943 +10的射电和X射线发射特性的同步开关。当脉冲星处于持续的无线电“明亮”模式时，X射线只显示非脉冲，非热成分。相反，当脉冲星处于无线电“安静”模式时，X射线亮度增加一倍以上，并且观察到100%的脉冲热分量以及非热分量。这表明磁层的条件发生了快速的全球性变化，这对所有提出的脉冲星发射理论提出了挑战。
We compare radio profile widths of young, energetic gamma-ray-detected and non-gamma-ray-detected pulsars. We find that the latter typically have wider radio profiles, with the boundary between the two samples exhibiting a dependence on the rate of rotational energy loss. We also find that within the sample of gamma-ray-detected pulsars, radio profile width is correlated with both the separation of the main gamma-ray peaks and the presence of narrow gamma-ray components. These findings lead us to propose that these pulsars form a single population where the main factors determining gamma ray d…
