A new method to analyse pulsar nulling phenomenon


Abstract in English

Pulsar nulling is a phenomenon of sudden cessation of pulse emission for a number of periods. The nulling fraction was often used to characterize the phenomenon. We propose a new method to analyse pulsar nulling phenomenon, by involving two key parameters, the nulling degree, $chi$, which is defined as the angle in a rectangular coordinates for the numbers of nulling periods and bursting periods, and the nulling scale, $ N $, which is defined as the effective length of the consecutive nulling periods and bursting periods. The nulling degree $chi$ can be calculated by $tan chi = N_{rm nulling} / N_{rm bursting} $ and the mean is related to the nulling fraction, while the nulling scale, $ N $, is also a newly defined fundamental parameter which indicates how often the nulling occurs. We determined the distributions of $chi$ and $ N $ for 10 pulsars by using the data in literature. We found that the nulling degree $chi$ indicates the relative length of nulling to that of bursting, and the nulling scale $ N $ is found to be related to the derivative of rotation frequency and hence the loss rate of rotational energy of pulsars. Their deviations reflect the randomness of the nulling process.

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