Aims. To investigate the flux density modulation from pulsars and the existence of specific behaviour of modulation index versus frequency. Methods. Several pulsars have been observed with the Effelsberg radio telescope at 8.35 GHz. Their flux density time series have been corrected for interstellar scintillation effects. Results. We present the measurement of modulation indices for 8 pulsars. We confirm the presence of a critical frequency at ~1 GHz for these pulsars (including 3 new ones from this study). We derived intrinsic modulation indices for the resulting flux density time series. Our data analysis revealed strong single pulses detected from 5 pulsars.
A successful attempt was made to analyse about 6000 single pulses of PSR B1133+16 obtained with the 100-meter Effelsberg radio-telescope. The high resolution (60 micro-seconds) data were taken at a frequency of 8.35 GHz with a bandwidth of 1.1 GHz. In order to examine the pulse-to-pulse intensity modulations, we performed both the longitude- and the harmonic-resolved fluctuation spectral analysis. We identified the low frequency feature associated with an amplitude modulation at f4 ~ 0.033 P1^(-1), which can be interpreted as the circulation time P4 ~ 30 P1 of the underlying subbeam carousel model. Despite an erratic nature of this pulsar, we also found an evidence of periodic pseudo-nulls with P4 = 28.44 P1. This is exactly the value at which Herfindal & Rankin found periodic pseudo-nulls in their 327 MHz data. We thus believe that this is the actual carousel circulation time in PSR B1133+16, particularly during orderly circulation.
We report on the pulse-to-pulse energy distributions and phase-resolved modulation properties for catalogued pulsars in the southern High Time Resolution Universe intermediate-latitude survey. We selected the 315 pulsars detected in a single-pulse search of this survey, allowing a large sample unbiased regarding any rotational parameters of neutron stars. We found that the energy distribution of many pulsars is well-described by a log-normal distribution, with few deviating from a small range in log-normal scale and location parameters. Some pulsars exhibited multiple energy states corresponding to mode changes, and implying that some observed nulling may actually be a mode-change effect. PSRJ1900-2600 was found to emit weakly in its previously-identified null state. We found evidence for another state-change effect in two pulsars, which show bimodality in their nulling time scales; that is, they switch between a continuous-emission state and a single-pulse-emitting state. Large modulation occurs in many pulsars across the full integrated profile, with increased sporadic bursts at leading and trailing sub-beam edges. Some of these high-energy outbursts may indicate the presence of giant pulse phenomena. We found no correlation with modulation and pulsar period, age, or other parameters. Finally, the deviation of integrated pulse energy from its average value was generally quite small, despite the significant phase-resolved modulation in some pulsars; we interpret this as tenuous evidence of energy regulation between distinct pulsar sub-beams.
We propose and numerically validate an all-optical scheme to generate a train of optical pulses. Modulation of a continuous wave with a periodic binary temporal phase pattern followed by a spectral phase shaping enables us to obtain ultrashort pulse trains. An ideal step phase profile as well as a profile arisen from a bandwidth-limited device are investigated. Analytical guidelines describing pulse trains formation and their characteristics are provided.
We propose a new method to detect off-pulse (unpulsed and/or continuous) emission from pulsars, using the intensity modulations associated with interstellar scintillation. Our technique involves obtaining the dynamic spectra, separately for on-pulse window and off-pulse region, with time and frequency resolutions to properly sample the intensity variations due to diffractive scintillation, and then estimating their mutual correlation as a measure of off-pulse emission, if any. We describe and illustrate the essential details of this technique with the help of simulations, as well as real data. We also discuss advantages of this method over earlier approaches to detect off-pulse emission. In particular, we point out how certain non-idealities inherent to measurement set-ups could potentially affect estimations in earlier approaches, and argue that the present technique is immune to such non-idealities. We verify both of the above situations with relevant simulations. We apply this method to observation of PSR B0329+54 at frequencies 730 and 810 MHz, made with the Green Bank Telescope and present upper limits for the off-pulse intensity at the two frequencies. We expect this technique to pave way for extensive investigations of off-pulse emission with the help of even existing dynamic spectral data on pulsars and of course with more sensitive long-duration data from new observations.
Using the state-of-the-art SKA precursor, the MeerKAT radio telescope, we explore the limits to precision pulsar timing of millisecond pulsars achievable due to pulse stochasticity (jitter). We report new jitter measurements in 15 of the 29 pulsars in our sample and find that the levels of jitter can vary dramatically between them. For some, like the 2.2~ms pulsar PSR J2241--5236, we measure an implied jitter of just $sim$ 4~ns/hr, while others like the 3.9~ms PSR J0636--3044 are limited to $sim$ 100 ns/hr. While it is well known that jitter plays a central role to limiting the precision measurements of arrival times for high signal-to-noise ratio observations, its role in the measurement of dispersion measure (DM) has not been reported, particularly in broad-band observations. Using the exceptional sensitivity of MeerKAT, we explored this on the bright millisecond pulsar PSR J0437--4715 by exploring the DM of literally every pulse. We found that the derived single pulse DMs vary by typically 0.0085 cm$^{-3}$ pc from the mean, and that the best DM estimate is limited by the differential pulse jitter across the band. We postulate that all millisecond pulsars will have their own limit on DM precision which can only be overcome with longer integrations. Using high-time resolution filterbank data of 9 $mu$s, we also present a statistical analysis of single pulse phenomenology. Finally, we discuss optimization strategies for the MeerKAT pulsar timing program and its role in the context of the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA).