Observations of Crab Giant Pulses in 20-84 MHz using LWA1

Abstract

We report the detection and observed characteristics of giant pulses from the Crab Nebula pulsar (B0531+21) in four frequency bands covering 20-84 MHz using the recently-completed Long Wavelength Array Station 1 (LWA1) radio telescope. In 10 hours of observations distributed over a 72-day period in Fall of 2012, 33 giant pulses having peak flux densities between 400 Jy and 2000 Jy were detected. Twenty-two of these pulses were detected simultaneously in channels of 16 MHz bandwidth centered at 44 MHz, 60 MHz, and 76 MHz, including one pulse which was also detected in a channel centered at 28 MHz. We quantify statistics of pulse amplitude and pulse shape characteristics, including pulse broadening. Amplitude statistics are consistent with expectations based on extrapolations from previous work at higher and lower frequencies. Pulse broadening is found to be relatively high, but not significantly greater than expected. We present procedures that have been found to be effective for observing giant pulses in this frequency range.

24 pages, 5 figures; accepted by the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (4)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The 74MHz System on the Very Large Array
• Correlation of the scattering and dispersion events in the Crab Nebula pulsar
• Detection of Crab Giant Pulses Using the Mileura Widefield Array Low Frequency Demonstrator Field Prototype System

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Pulsar Observations Using the First Station of the Long Wavelength Array and the LWA Pulsar Data Archive
• The High Time and Frequency Resolution Capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array
• Spectral Flattening at Low Frequencies in Crab Giant Pulses
• Low frequency spectral energy distributions of radio pulsars detected with the Murchison Widefield Array
• Design and Commissioning of the LWA1 Radio Telescope
• Probing pulsar scattering between 120 and 280 MHz with the MWA
• Observations of Giant Pulses from Pulsar PSR B0950+08 using LWA1
• A Low Frequency Survey of Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar
• Wide-Band Spectra of Giant Radio Pulses from the Crab Pulsar
• Simultaneous Observations of Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar, with the Murchison Widefield Array and Parkes Radio Telescope: Implications for the Giant Pulse Emission Mechanism
• Modeling the Ionosphere with GPS and Rotation Measure Observations
• Exploration of the polarization angle variability of the Crab Nebula with POLARBEAR and its application to the search for axion-like particles
• Statistics of VHE gamma-Rays in Temporal Association with Radio Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar
• Measurements of the Crab Pulsar's Giant Radio Pulse Amplitude Power-Law Index Using Low-Frequency Arecibo and Green Bank Telescope Observations