Asymmetry of bifurcated features in radio pulsar profiles

Abstract

High-quality integrated radio profiles of some pulsars contain bifurcated, highly symmetric emission components (BECs). They are observed when our line of sight traverses through a split-fan shaped emission beam. It is shown that for oblique cuts through such a beam, the features appear asymmetric at nearly all frequencies, except from a single `frequency of symmetry' nu_sym, at which both peaks in the BEC have the same height. Around nu_sym the ratio of flux in the two peaks of a BEC evolves in a way resembling the multifrequency behaviour of J1012+5307. Because of the inherent asymmetry resulting from the oblique traverse of sightline, each minimum in double notches can be modelled independently. Such a composed model reproduces the double notches of B1929+10 if the fitted function is the microscopic beam of curvature radiation in the orthogonal polarisation mode. These results confirm our view that some of the double components in radio pulsar profiles directly reveal the microscopic nature of the emitted radiation beam as the microbeam of curvature radiation polarised orthogonally to the trajectory of electrons.

10 pages, 7 figures, printed in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• Polarization observations of 20 millisecond pulsars
• Pulsar Pair Cascades in a Distorted Magnetic Dipole Field
• Three-dimensional Two-Layer Outer Gap Model: Fermi Energy Dependent Light Curves of the Vela Pulsar
• A model for double notches and bifurcated components in radio profiles of pulsars and magnetars - Evidence for the parallel acceleration maser in pulsar magnetosphere
• Curvature-drift instability fails to generate pulsar radio emission

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• A model for distortions of polarisation-angle curves in radio pulsars
• The ratio of profile peak separations as a probe of pulsar radio-beam structure
• Energy budget of the bifurcated component in the radio pulsar profile of PSR J1012+5307
• The geometry of a radio pulsar beam
• Role of Fan Beam Model in Population Synthesis of Isolated Radio Pulsars
• Analysis of single pulse radio flux measurements of PSR B1133+16 at 4.85 and 8.35 GHz
• The fan beam model for the pulse evolution of PSR J0737-3039B
• Evidence for scattering of curvature radiation in radio pulsar profiles