The Period-Width relationship for radio pulsars revisited

Abstract

In the standard picture of radio pulsars, the radio emission arises from a set of open magnetic field lines, the extent of which is primarily determined by the pulsar's spin period, P, and the emission height. We have used a database of parameters from 600 pulsars to show that the observed profile width, W, follows W proportional to P^-0.3 albeit with a large scatter, emission occurs from heights below 400 km and that the beam is underfilled. Furthermore, the prevalence in the data for long period pulsars to have relatively wide profiles can only be explained if the angle between the magnetic and rotation axis decays with time.

Accepted (finally!) by MNRAS. 8 pages, 9 figures

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• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT: -- VI. Pulse widths of a large and diverse sample of radio pulsars
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT -- VIII. The subpulse modulation of 1198 pulsars
• Searching for Time-Dependent Axion Dark Matter Signals in Pulsars
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• MeerKAT observations of the reversing drifting subpulses in PSR J1750-3503
• A broadband radio study of PSR J0250+5854: the slowest-spinning radio pulsar known
• Pulsar polarimetry with the Parkes Ultra-Wideband receiver
• Discovery of an Extremely Intermittent Periodic Radio Source
• A renewed search for radio emission from the variable $\gamma$-ray pulsar PSR J2021$+$4026
• Smoking gun signature from axion and the constraints with radio telescopes