Comparison of giant radio pulses in young pulsars and millisecond pulsars

Abstract

Pulse-to-pulse intensity variations are a common property of pulsar radio emission. For some of the objects single pulses are often 10-times stronger than their average pulse. The most dramatic events are so-called giant radio pulses (GRPs). They can be thousand times stronger than the regular single pulses from the pulsar. Giant pulses are a rare phenomenon, occurring in very few pulsars which split into two groups. The first group contains very young and energetic pulsars like the Crab pulsar, and its twin (PSR B0540-69) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), while the second group is represented by old, recycled millisecond pulsars like PSR B1937+21, PSR B1821-24, PSR B1957+20 and PSR J0218+4232 (the only millisecond pulsar detected in gamma-rays). We compare the characteristics of GRPs for these two pulsar groups. Moreover, our latest findings of new features in the Crab GRPs are presented. Analysis of our Effelsberg data at 8.35 GHz shows that GRPs do occur in all phases of its ordinary radio emission, including the phases of the two high frequency components (HFCs) visible only between 5 and 9 GHz.Comment: Proceedings of the 363. WE-Heraeus Seminar on: Neutron Stars and Pulsars (Posters and contributed talks) Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany, May.14-19, 2006, eds. W.Becker, H.H.Huang, MPE Report 291, pp.64-6