A single pulse study of PSR J1022+1001

TL;DR

This study uses FAST to analyze 100,000 single pulses from PSR J1022+1001, revealing polarization, energy distribution, and timing noise characteristics, demonstrating FAST's potential for gravitational wave detection and pulsar timing noise analysis.

Contribution

First detailed single-pulse analysis of PSR J1022+1001 using FAST, highlighting polarization and timing noise properties relevant for gravitational wave detection.

Findings

No evidence of giant pulses, nulling, or mode changing.

Energy in pulse components is correlated.

Pulse jitter causes 67 ns excess noise in timing residuals.

Abstract

Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), we have recorded 10^5 single pulses from PSR J1022+1001. We studied the polarization properties, their energy distribution and their times of arrival. This is only possible with the high sensitivity available using FAST. There is no indication that PSR~J1022+1001 exhibits giant pulse, nulling or traditional mode changing phenomena. The energy in the leading and trailing components of the integrated profile is shown to be correlated. The degree of both linear and circular polarization increases with the pulse flux density for individual pulses. Our data indicates that pulse jitter leads to an excess noise in the timing residuals of 67 ns when scaled to one hour, which is consistent with Liu et al. (2015). We have unsuccessfully trialled various methods to improve timing precision through the selection of specific single pulses. Our work demonstrates that FAST can detect individual pulses from pulsars that are observed in order to detect and study gravitational waves. This capability enables detailed studies, and parameterisation, of the noise processes that affect the sensitivity of a pulsar timing array.