A T N F    D a i l y    A s t r o n o m y    P i c t u r e

7th of September 2017
High precision timing of the pulsar PSR J1933-6211
(by Graikou et al.)
Graikoou et al. have used data from the Parkes radio telescope to undertake a high-precision timing analysis of PSR J1933−6211, a millisecond pulsar with a 3.5 milli-second spin period and a white dwarf companion, Having accurately measured the polarization properties of the pulsar, they applied a matrix template matching approach in which the times of arrival are measured using full polarimetric information. This allowed timing residuals of 1.23 micro-seconds to be achieved, a 15.5 per cent improvement compared to the total intensity timing analysis. By further studying the scintillation properties of the pulsar, they were able to constrain the inclination angle of the binary system and place an upper limit on the mass of the white dwarf companion of 0.44 solar masses.

The image above shows the average pulse profile obtained using the CASPSR backend at 1382 MHz (averaged across a bandwidth of 256 MHz). The linear (solid) and circular (dotted) polarization profiles are presented as well as the total intensity profile (bold). The flux scale is arbitrary. The fact that the main pulse is sub-divided into three individual sharp components greatly aids the timing precision achievable in this system. This was not possible in earlier data, as the coherent dedispersion provided by the CASPSR backend was not available, and this fine structure in the pulse profile was smeared out.

These results are published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 471., pp.4579--4586 (2017).




<<   |   archive   |   about   |   today   *   ATNF   |   Parkes   |   ATCA   |   Mopra   |   VLBI   |   ASKAP   |   >>