Measurements of the Crab Pulsar’s Giant Radio Pulse Amplitude Power-law Index Using Low-frequency Arecibo and Green Bank Telescope Observations

Abstract

We report two low-frequency measurements of the power-law index for the amplitudes of giant radio pulses from the Crab pulsar. The two observations were taken with the Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes at center frequencies of 327 MHz and 350 MHz, respectively. We find best-fit values for the differential power-law index β (where ${dN}/{dS}\propto {S}^{\beta }$ and S is the pulse amplitude) of −2.63 ± 0.05 and −3.6 ± 0.5 from the Arecibo and Green Bank data sets, respectively. Both values are broadly consistent with other values previously measured for the Crab pulsar at low radio frequencies. These reported values may be useful in future giant pulse studies of the Crab pulsar.

Keywords

• Pulsars
• Radio transient sources