A Statistical Analysis of Crab Pulsar Giant Pulse Rates

Abstract

A small number of pulsars are known to emit giant pulses (GPs), single pulses much brighter than average. Among these is PSR J0534+2200, also known as the Crab pulsar, a young pulsar with high GP rates. Long-term monitoring of the Crab pulsar presents an excellent opportunity to perform statistical studies of its GPs and the processes affecting them, potentially providing insight into the behavior of other neutron stars that emit bright single pulses. Here, we present an analysis of a set of 24,985 Crab GPs obtained from 88 hr of daily observations at a center frequency of 1.55 GHz by the 20 m telescope at the Green Bank Observatory, spread over 461 days. We study the effects of refractive scintillation at higher frequencies than previous studies and compare methods of correcting for this effect. We also search for deterministic patterns seen in other single-pulse sources, possible periodicities seen in several rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts, and clustering of GPs like that seen in the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102.

Keywords

• Pulsars
• Neutron stars
• Interstellar scintillation