Pulsar Timing Techniques

TL;DR

This paper details the methods and challenges in processing radio pulsar timing data, focusing on creating accurate TOAs, residuals, and error bars, and addressing issues like template mismatch and system offsets.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of pulsar timing data analysis techniques, including solutions for common problems encountered in the process.

Findings

Identifies key issues in pulsar timing data processing.

Proposes solutions for template mismatch and system offsets.

Enhances accuracy of pulsar timing measurements.

Abstract

We describe the procedure, nuances, issues, and choices involved in creating times-of-arrival (TOAs), residuals and error bars from a set of radio pulsar timing data. We discuss the issue of mis-matched templates, the problem that wide- bandwidth backends introduce, possible solutions to that problem, and correcting for offsets introduced by various observing systems.