28th of March 2019 |
---|
Pulsar quiet-mode modulations |
by Yan et al. |
The pulsar PSR J1825−0935 has a pulse profile with a main pulse and a
fainter inter-pulse, and is known to switch between radio-quiet and
radio-bright modes. The quiet mode has a periodic fluctuation that
modulates both the interpulse and the main pulse with the same
period. Previous investigators proposed that the periodic quiet-mode
modulation is associated with drifting subpulses, however, Yan et
al. have used the Parkes 64-m radio telescope to show that the
periodic Q-mode modulation is in fact a periodic and phase-locked
longitude-stationary intensity modulation occurring in the interpulse
and the main pulse. The modulation period is about 43 times the 769
millisecond rotation period of the pulsar.
Yan et al. suggest that this periodic modulations in the quiet-mode
results from periodic fluctuations in the magnetospheric
field currents of the pulsar.
The plot above shows the pulse energy variations for the interpulse (IP, upper panel) and the main pulse (MP, lower panel) for observations on 2014 August 20. More details are given in the paper to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. |