The Glitches and Rotational History of the Highly Energetic Young Pulsar PSR J0537–6910

We present a timing and glitch analysis of the young X-ray pulsar PSR J0537−6910, located within the Large Magellanic Cloud, using 13 yr of data from the now-decommissioned Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. Rotating with a spin period of 16 ms, PSR J0537−6910 is the fastest-spinning and most energetic young pulsar known. It also displays the highest glitch activity of any known pulsar. We have found 42 glitches over the data span, corresponding to a glitch rate of 3.2 yr−1, with an overall glitch activity rate of $8.8\times {10}^{-7}\,{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$. The high glitch frequency has allowed us to study the glitch behavior in ways that are inaccessible in other pulsars. We observe a strong linear correlation between spin frequency glitch magnitude and wait time to the following glitch. We also find that the post-glitch spin-down recovery is well described by a single two-component model fit to all glitches for which we have adequate input data. This consists of an exponential amplitude $A=(7.6\pm 1.0)\times {10}^{-14}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-2}$, decay timescale $\tau ={27}_{-6}^{+7}\,\mathrm{day}$s, and linear slope $m=(4.1\pm 0.4)\times {10}^{-16}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-2}\,{\mathrm{day}}^{-1}$. The latter slope corresponds to a second frequency derivative $\ddot{\nu }=(4.7\pm 0.5)\times {10}^{-22}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-3}$, from which we find an implied braking index $n=7.4\pm 0.8$. We also present a maximum likelihood technique for searching for periods in event-time data, which we used to both confirm previously published values and determine rotation frequencies in later observations. We discuss the implied constraints on glitch models from the observed behavior of this system, which we argue cannot be fully explained in the context of existing theories

The European Pulsar Timing Array: current efforts and a LEAP toward the future

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) is a multi-institutional, multi-telescope collaboration, with the goal of using high-precision pulsar timing to directly detect gravitational waves. In this paper we discuss the EPTA member telescopes, current achieved timing precision and near-future goals. We report a preliminary upper limit to the amplitude of a gravitational wave background. We also discuss the Large European Array for Pulsars, in which the five major European telescopes involved in pulsar timing will be combined to provide a coherent array that will give similar sensitivity to the Arecibo radio telescope, and larger sky coverage

Dataset for "Eight Millisecond Pulsars Discovered in the Arecibo PALFA Survey"

This repository includes pulse profile templates (Pulsar Archive format; .sm files) presented in Figure 1 and TEMPO-readable ephemerides associated with the final timing solutions presented in Table 1 (text-readable format; .par files) of the manuscript, "Eight Millisecond Pulsars Discovered in the Arecibo PALFA Survey" accepted to the Astrophysical Journal