No Measurable Changes in Radio and X-ray Emission Surrounding Glitches in the Young Pulsar PSR J2229+6114

TL;DR

This study monitored four glitches in pulsar PSR J2229+6114 using radio and X-ray observations, finding no measurable emission changes, contrasting with behaviors seen in high-magnetic-field pulsars and challenging existing neutron star models.

Contribution

First simultaneous radio and X-ray observational campaign on PSR J2229+6114 glitches, providing constraints on post-glitch emission changes and informing neutron star magnetic field models.

Findings

No detectable radio or X-ray emission changes during glitches.

Contrasts with high-B pulsars showing magnetar-like activity post-glitch.

Supports the idea that magnetar-like activity is less common in low-B pulsars.

Abstract

We present our first result from an ongoing pulsar glitch monitoring campaign at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), in which we analyzed the radio and X-ray emission surrounding four glitches in PSR J2229+6114. Using daily CHIME observations, we detected a glitch in PSR J2229+6114 in near-real time and triggered an X-ray follow-up with NuSTAR two days after the glitch. We identified three additional glitch events in archival CHIME/Pulsar observations that coincided with an independent X-ray observing campaign with NICER. Our data show no measurable changes in the source's X-ray and radio emission during the four glitch events, in stark contrast to the post-glitch activity in high-magnetic-field, rotation-powered pulsars (RPPs), which have been observed to exhibit magnetar-like X-ray outbursts immediately after large glitches. Those high-magnetic-field (high-B) RPPs are considered transitional objects between ordinary RPPs and magnetars, thereby leading to a unifying neutron star model in which the inferred dipolar surface magnetic field strength serves as a unifying parameter. However, such a model remains challenged, in part, by the lack of constraints near the low-B end of the high-B regime, and our result provides additional evidence that magnetar-like post-glitch activity is likely more common among high-B RPPs.