Multiwavelength Studies of Rotating Radio Transients

TL;DR

This study investigates the radio and X-ray properties of Rotating Radio Transients, revealing typical pulsar-like spectra, a blackbody X-ray spectrum with an absorption feature, and no correlation between radio and X-ray emissions, suggesting complex emission mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed multiwavelength analysis of RRATs, including spectral properties and the lack of radio-X-ray correlation, highlighting their similarities to normal pulsars.

Findings

Radio pulse intensities are log-normal with power-law tails.

Mean spectral index around -1.7, similar to normal pulsars.

X-ray spectrum shows a blackbody with an absorption feature, no bursts observed.

Abstract

We describe our studies of the radio and high-energy properties of Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs). We find that the radio pulse intensity distributions are log-normal, with power-law tails evident in two cases. For the three RRATs with coverage over a wide range of frequency, the mean spectral index is -1.7\pm0.1, roughly in the range of normal pulsars. We do not observe anomalous magnetar-like spectra for any RRATs. Our 94-ks XMM-Newton observation of the high magnetic field RRAT J1819-1458 reveals a blackbody spectrum (kT ~130 eV) with an unusual absorption feature at ~1 keV. We find no evidence for X-ray bursts or other X-ray variability. We performed a correlation analysis of the X-ray photons with radio pulses detected in concurrent observations with the Green Bank, Effelsberg, and Parkes telescopes. We find no evidence for any correlations between radio pulse emission and X-ray photons, perhaps suggesting that sporadicity is not due to variations in magnetospheric particle density but to changes in beaming or coherence.