Radio Pulsar Sub-Populations (I) : The Curious Case of Nulling Pulsars

TL;DR

This paper investigates nulling episodes in radio pulsars, revealing that nulling is not correlated with intrinsic parameters and may be linked to emission from highly curved magnetic fields near the polar cap.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that nulling pulsars may have emission originating from regions with extremely curved magnetic fields, a novel perspective in pulsar studies.

Findings

Nulling fraction shows no clear correlation with pulsar parameters.

Nulling may be associated with emission from the polar cap region.

Pulsars with highly curved magnetic fields are more prone to nulling.

Abstract

About 200 radio pulsars have been observed to exhibit nulling episodes - short and long. We find that the nulling fraction of a pulsar does not have any obvious correlation with any of the intrinsic pulsar parameters. It also appears that the phenomenon of nulling may be preferentially experienced by pulsars with emission coming predominantly from the polar cap region, and also having extremely curved magnetic fields.