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Abstract Single-pulse studies are important to understand the pulsar emission mechanism and the noise floor in precision timing. We study total intensity and polarimetry properties of three bright millisecond pulsars – PSRs J1022+1001, J1713+0747, and B1855+09 – that have detectable single pulses at multiple frequencies. We report for the first time the detection of single pulses from PSRs J1022+1001 and J1713+0747 at 4.5 GHz. In addition, for those two pulsars, the fraction of linear polarization in the average profile is significantly reduced at 4.5 GHz, compared to 1.38 GHz, which could support the expected deviation from a dipolar field closer to the pulsar surface. There is a hint of orthogonal modes in the single pulses of PSR J1713+0747. More sensitive multifrequency observations may be useful to confirm these findings. The jitter noise contributions at 1.38 GHz, scaled to one hour, for PSRs J1022+1001, J1713+0747, and B1855+09 are ≈135, ≈45, and ≈60 ns, respectively and are consistent with previous studies. We also show that selective bright-pulse timing of PSR J1022+1001 yields improved root-mean-square residuals of ≈22 $$\mu$$s, which is a factor of ≈3 better than timing using single pulses alone. 

ABSTRACT Since their discovery more than 50 years ago, broad-band radio studies of pulsars have generated a wealth of information about the underlying physics of radio emission. In order to gain some further insights into this elusive emission mechanism, we performed a multifrequency study of two very well-known pulsars, PSR B0919+06 and PSR B1859+07. These pulsars show peculiar radio emission properties whereby the emission shifts to an earlier rotation phase before returning to the nominal emission phase in a few tens of pulsar rotations (also known as ‘swooshes’). We confirm the previous claim that the emission during the swoosh is not necessarily absent at low frequencies and the single pulses during a swoosh show varied behaviour at 220 MHz. We also confirm that in PSR B0919+06, the pulses during the swoosh show a chromatic dependence of the maximum offset from the normal emission phase with the offset following a consistent relationship with observing frequency. We also observe that the flux density spectrum of the radio profile during the swoosh is inverted compared to the normal emission. For PSR B1859+07, we have discovered a new mode of emission in the pulsar that is potentially quasi-periodic with a different periodicity than is seen in its swooshes. We invoke an emission model previously proposed in the literature and show that this simple model can explain the macroscopic observed characteristics in both pulsars. We also argue that pulsars that exhibit similar variability on short time-scales may have the same underlying emission mechanism. 

ABSTRACT We conducted a drift-scan observation campaign using the 305-m Arecibo telescope in 2020 January and March when the observatory was temporarily closed during the intense earthquakes and the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. The primary objective of the survey was to search for fast radio transients, including fast radio bursts (FRBs) and rotating radio transients (RRATs). We used the seven-beam ALFA receiver to observe different sections of the sky within the declination region ∼(10°–20°) on 23 nights and collected 160 h of data in total. We searched our data for single-pulse transients, of covering up to a maximum dispersion measure of 11 000 pc cm−3 at which the dispersion delay across the entire bandwidth is equal to the 13-s transit length of our observations. The analysis produced more than 18 million candidates. Machine learning techniques sorted the radio frequency interference and possibly astrophysical candidates, allowing us to visually inspect and confirm the candidate transients. We found no evidence for new astrophysical transients in our data. We also searched for emission from repeated transient signals, but found no evidence for such sources. We detected single pulses from two known pulsars in our observations and their measured flux densities are consistent with the expected values. Based on our observations and sensitivity, we estimated the upper limit for the FRB rate to be <2.8 × 105 sky−1 d−1 above a fluence of 0.16 Jy ms at 1.4 GHz, which is consistent with the rates from other telescopes and surveys. 

Abstract We present new discoveries and results from long-term timing of 72 pulsars discovered in the Pulsar Arecibo L -band Feed Array (PALFA) survey, including precise determination of astrometric and spin parameters, and flux density and scatter broadening measurements at 1.4 GHz. Notable discoveries include two young pulsars (characteristic ages ∼30 kyr) with no apparent supernova remnant associations, three mode-changing, 12 nulling and two intermittent pulsars. We detected eight glitches in five pulsars. Among them is PSR J1939+2609, an apparently old pulsar (characteristic age ∼1 Gy), and PSR J1954+2529, which likely belongs to a newly emerging class of binary pulsars. The latter is the only pulsar among the 72 that is clearly not isolated: a nonrecycled neutron star with a 931 ms spin period in an eccentric ( e = 0.114) wide ( P b = 82.7 days) orbit with a companion of undetermined nature having a minimum mass of ∼0.6 M ⊙ . Since operations at Arecibo ceased in 2020 August, we give a final tally of PALFA sky coverage, and compare its 207 pulsar discoveries to the known population. On average, they are 50% more distant than other Galactic plane radio pulsars; PALFA millisecond pulsars (MSPs) have twice the dispersion measure per unit spin period than the known population of MSP in the plane. The four intermittent pulsars discovered by PALFA more than double the population of such objects, which should help to improve our understanding of pulsar magnetosphere physics. The statistics for these, rotating radio transients, and nulling pulsars suggest that there are many more of these objects in the Galaxy than was previously thought. 

ABSTRACT The International Pulsar Timing Array 2nd data release is the combination of data sets from worldwide collaborations. In this study, we search for continuous waves: gravitational wave signals produced by individual supermassive black hole binaries in the local universe. We consider binaries on circular orbits and neglect the evolution of orbital frequency over the observational span. We find no evidence for such signals and set sky averaged 95 per cent upper limits on their amplitude h95. The most sensitive frequency is 10 nHz with h95 = 9.1 × 10−15. We achieved the best upper limit to date at low and high frequencies of the PTA band thanks to improved effective cadence of observations. In our analysis, we have taken into account the recently discovered common red noise process, which has an impact at low frequencies. We also find that the peculiar noise features present in some pulsars data must be taken into account to reduce the false alarm. We show that using custom noise models is essential in searching for continuous gravitational wave signals and setting the upper limit. 

Abstract The Australian, Chinese, European, Indian, and North American pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations recently reported, at varying levels, evidence for the presence of a nanohertz gravitational-wave background (GWB). Given that each PTA made different choices in modeling their data, we perform a comparison of the GWB and individual pulsar noise parameters across the results reported from the PTAs that constitute the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA). We show that despite making different modeling choices, there is no significant difference in the GWB parameters that are measured by the different PTAs, agreeing within 1σ. The pulsar noise parameters are also consistent between different PTAs for the majority of the pulsars included in these analyses. We bridge the differences in modeling choices by adopting a standardized noise model for all pulsars and PTAs, finding that under this model there is a reduction in the tension in the pulsar noise parameters. As part of this reanalysis, we “extended” each PTA’s data set by adding extra pulsars that were not timed by that PTA. Under these extensions, we find better constraints on the GWB amplitude and a higher signal-to-noise ratio for the Hellings–Downs correlations. These extensions serve as a prelude to the benefits offered by a full combination of data across all pulsars in the IPTA, i.e., the IPTA’s Data Release 3, which will involve not just adding in additional pulsars but also including data from all three PTAs where any given pulsar is timed by more than a single PTA.