Journal article

Analysing radio pulsar timing noise with a Kalman filter: a demonstration involving PSR J1359−6038

NJ O’Neill, PM Meyers, A Melatos

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | OXFORD UNIV PRESS | Published : 2024

Abstract

In the standard two-component crust-superfluid model of a neutron star, timing noise can arise when the two components are perturbed by stochastic torques. Here it is demonstrated how to analyse fluctuations in radio pulse times of arrival with a Kalman filter to measure physical properties of the two-component model, including the crust-superfluid coupling time-scale and the variances of the crust and superfluid torques. The analysis technique, validated previously on synthetic data, is applied to observations with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope of the representative pulsar PSR J1359−6038. It is shown that the two-component model is preferred to a one-component model, with log..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

The authors thank Liam Dunn for discussions on using the tempo2 software to analyse pulsar timing data. Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), through project number CE170100004. NJO is the recipient of a Melbourne Research Scholarship. The numerical calculations were performed on the OzSTAR supercomputer facility at Swinburne University of Technology. The OzSTAR programme receives funding in part from the Astronomy National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) allocation provided by the Australian Government.