Observations of microglitches in HartRAO radio pulsars

Abstract

A detailed observation of microglitch phenomenon in relatively slow radio pulsars is presented. Our analyses for these small amplitude jumps in pulse rotation frequency ($\nu$) and/or spin down rate ($\dot{\nu }$) combine the traditional manual detection method (which hinges on careful visual inspections of the residuals of pulse phase residuals) and a new, and perhaps more objective, automated search technique (which exploits the power of the computer, rather than the eyes, for resolving discrete events in pulsar spin parameters). The results of the analyses of a sample of 26 radio pulsars reveal that: (i) only 20 pulsars exhibit significant fluctuations in their arrival times to be considered suitable for meaningful microglitch analyses; (ii) a phenomenal 299 microglitch events were identified in $\nu$ and/or $\dot{\nu }$: 266 of these events were found to be simultaneously significant in $\nu$ and $\dot{\nu }$, while 19 and 14 were noticeable only in $\nu$ and $\dot{\nu }$, respectively; (iii) irrespective of sign, the microglitches have fractional sizes which cover about 3 orders of magnitude in $\nu$ and $\dot{\nu }$ ($10^{-11}<|\Delta \nu /\nu |<2.0\times 10^{-8}$ and $5.0\times 10^{-5}<|\Delta \dot{\nu }/\dot{\nu }|<2.0\times 10^{-2}$) with median values as $0.78\times 10^{-9}$ and $0.36\times 10^{-3}$, respectively.

12 pages, 3 figures, 2 Tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journal

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• Constraints on wide-band radiative changes after a glitch in PSR J1452-6036
• On the bimodal nature of the distributions of pulsar glitch sizes
• On the Glitch Evolution of Pulsars
• On the challenges of Angular Momentum Transfer Mechanism of Pulsar Glitches