Nature of cyclical changes in the timing residuals from the pulsar B1642-03

Abstract

We report an analysis of timing data for the pulsar B1642-03 (J1645-0317) gathered over the 40-year time span between 1969 and 2008. During this interval, the pulsar experienced eight glitch-like events with a fractional increase in the rotation frequency Deltanu/nu=(0.9-2.6)x10^{-9}. We have revealed two important relations in the properties of these peculiar glitches. The first result shows that there is a strong linear correlation between the amplitude of the glitch and the time interval to the next glitch. The second result shows that the amplitude of the glitches is modulated by a periodic large-scale sawtooth-like function. As a result of this modulation, the glitch amplitude varies discretely from glitch to glitch with a step of 1.5x10^{-9} Hz in the range (2.4-6.9)x10^{-9} Hz. The post-glitch time interval also varies discretely with a step of about 600 days in the range 900-2700 days. An analysis of the data showed that three modulation schemes with modulation periods of 43 years, 53 years and 60 years are possible. The best model is the 60-year modulation scheme including 12 glitches. We make a conclusion that the nature of the observed cyclical changes in the timing residuals from PSR B1642-03 is a continuous generation of peculiar glitches whose amplitudes are modulated by a periodic large-scale sawtooth-like function. As the modulation function is periodical, the picture of cyclical timing residuals will be exactly repeated in each modulation period or every 60 years.

arXiv comment26 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (5)

• Predicting the Starquakes in PSR J0537-6910
• Glitches in Southern Pulsars
• Evidence for Free Precession in the Pulsar B1642-03
• Observations of Six Glitches in PSR B1737-30
• Slow glitches in the pulsar B1822-09

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• Timing Observations of 27 Pulsars at the Pushchino Observatory from 1978 to 2012
• Size-waiting-time correlations in pulsar glitches
• Cyclical Changes in the Timing Residuals from the Pulsar B0919+06
• Pulsar glitch activity as a state-dependent Poisson process: parameter estimation and epoch prediction
• Timing results of 22 years for PSR J0922+0638