Pulsars in AstroSat-CZTI: Detection in sub-MeV bands and Estimation of Spectral Index from Hardness Ratios

TL;DR

This study enhances pulsar detection and spectral analysis using AstroSat-CZTI data, extending energy coverage up to 1 MeV and employing hardness ratios to estimate spectral indices with improved calibration and analysis techniques.

Contribution

We extended the pulsar analysis method to include additional CZTI pixels, enabling spectral estimation over a broader energy range up to 1 MeV.

Findings

Pulse profiles are consistent across extended energy bands.

Hardness ratios effectively constrain spectral indices.

Photon indices are accurate within approximately 20%.

Abstract

The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI) onboard AstroSat, an open detector above $\sim$100 keV, is a promising tool for the investigation of hard X-ray characteristics of $\gamma$-ray pulsars. A custom algorithm has been developed to detect pulsars from long integration ($\sim$years) of archival data, as reported by us earlier. Here we extend this method to include in the analysis an additional $\sim$20% of the CZTI pixels that were earlier ignored due to their lower gain values. Recent efforts have provided better and more secure calibration of these pixels, demonstrating their higher thresholds and extended energy range up to $\sim$1 MeV. Here we use the additional information provided by these pixels, enabling the construction of pulse profiles over a larger energy range. We compare the profiles of the Crab pulsar at different sub-bands and show that the behaviour is consistent with the extended energy coverage. As detailed spectroscopy over this full band remains difficult due to the limited count rate, we construct hardness ratios which, together with AstroSat Mass Model simulations, are able to constrain the power-law index of the radiation spectrum. We present our results for the phase-resolved spectrum of PSR J0534+2200 and for the total pulsed emission of PSR J1513-5908. The recovered photon indices are found to be accurate to within $\sim 20$%.