Multi-Method Timing of Transient Radio Pulsars with the GBT350 and GBNCC Surveys

TL;DR

This study presents timing solutions for three RRATs discovered via GBNCC and GBT surveys, comparing single-pulse and integrated methods, revealing pulse clustering and emission diversity akin to nulling pulsars.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-method timing approach for RRATs, highlighting differences between single-pulse and integrated timing and characterizing their emission behaviors.

Findings

Single-pulse and integrated timing parameters are generally consistent within two standard deviations.

Single-pulse timing has higher RMS errors due to pulse jitter.

Detected pulses show clustering and emission patterns similar to nulling pulsars.

Abstract

We present the timing solutions for three radio pulsars discovered with the Green Bank North Celestial Cap (GBNCC) and 350-MHz Green Bank Telescope drift-scan surveys. These pulsars were initially discovered through their single-pulse emission and therefore designated as rotating radio transients (RRATs). Follow-up timing campaigns yielded a number of higher signal-to-noise summed pulse profiles for each pulsar, allowing us to obtain timing solutions both through single pulses as well as the standard method of time-integrating the pulsar's emission. We find that the two methods return timing parameters which are usually in agreement within two standard deviations, and have similar sized error bars. The single-pulse timing solutions have significantly higher RMS errors and reduced chi-squared values, likely due to pulse jitter. The distribution of wait times between detected single pulses indicates a significant amount of pulse clustering in time on short timescales from all three sources. For all sources, the presence of low-level emission outside of the sparse bright pulses and lack of giant pulses is more reminiscent of highly nulling canonical radio pulsars than extremely transient RRATs, highlighting the diversity of emission behavior observed from sources published as RRATs.