Radio Properties of Rotating Radio Transients I: searches for periodicities and randomness in pulse arrival times

TL;DR

This study analyzes pulse timing and detection rates of eight RRATs, revealing significant periodicities, random short-term emission, and longer-term non-random behaviors, contributing to understanding RRAT emission mechanisms.

Contribution

It identifies multiple periodicities in RRAT pulse arrival times and distinguishes between short-term randomness and long-term non-random behaviors, advancing knowledge of RRAT emission patterns.

Findings

Significant periodicities from 30 minutes to 2100 days in six RRATs

Pulse emission is Poissonian on hour scales but non-random over months to years

Excess doublets and triplets observed in two RRATs, not in others

Abstract

We have analysed the long- and short-term time dependence of the pulse arrival times and the pulse detection rates for eight Rotating Radio Transient (RRAT) sources from the Parkes Multi-beam Pulsar Survey (PMPS). We find significant periodicities in the individual pulse arrival times from six RRATs. These periodicities range from 30 minutes to 2100 days and from one to 16 independent (i.e. non-harmonically related) periodicities are detected for each RRAT. In addition, we find that pulse emission is a random (i.e. Poisson) process on short (hour-long) time scales but that most of the objects exhibit longer term (months-years) non-random behaviour. We find that PSRs J1819-1458 and J1317-5759 emit more doublets (two consecutive pulses) and triplets (three consecutive pulses) than is expected in random pulse distributions. No evidence for such an excess is found for the other RRATs. There are several different models for RRAT emission depending on both extrinsic and intrinsic factors which are consistent with these properties.