Neutron stars in the light of SKA: Data, statistics, and science

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Abstract

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), when it becomes functional, is expected to enrich neutron star (NS) catalogues by at least an order of magnitude over their current state. This includes the discovery of new NS objects leading to better sampling of under-represented NS categories, precision measurements of intrinsic properties such as spin period and magnetic field, as also data on related phenomena such as microstructure, nulling, glitching, etc. This will present a unique opportunity to seek answers to interesting and fundamental questions about the extreme physics underlying these exotic objects in the universe. In this paper, we first present a meta-analysis (from a methodological viewpoint) of statistical analyses performed using existing NS data, with a two-fold goal: First, this should bring out how statistical models and methods are shaped and dictated by the science problem being addressed. Second, it is hoped that these analyses will provide useful starting points for deeper analyses involving richer data from SKA whenever it becomes available. We also describe a few other areas of NS science which we believe will benefit from SKA which are of interest to the Indian NS community.

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Pulsar statistics: the birthrate and initial spin periods of radio pulsars

M Bailes, D. R. Lorimer, R. J. Dewey … (1993)

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A study of 315 glitches in the rotation of 102 pulsars

Michael Kramer, Ben Stappers, Andrew Lyne … (2011)

The rotation of more than 700 pulsars has been monitored using the 76-m Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. Here we report on a new search for glitches in the observations, revealing 128 new glitches in the rotation of 63 pulsars. Combining these new data with those already published we present a database containing 315 glitches in 102 pulsars. The database was used to study the glitch activity among the pulsar population, finding that it peaks for pulsars with a characteristic age tau_c ~ 10kyr and decreases for longer values of tau_c, disappearing for objects with tau_c > 20Myr. The glitch activity is also smaller in the very young pulsars (tau_c <~ 1kyr). The cumulative effect of glitches, a collection of instantaneous spin up events, acts to reduce the regular long term spindown rate |nudot| of the star. The percentage of |nudot| reversed by glitch activity was found to vary between 0.5% and 1.6% for pulsars with spindown rates |nudot| between 10^(-14) and 3.2*10^(-11) Hz/s, decreasing to less than 0.01% at both higher and lower spindown rates. These ratios are interpreted in terms of the amount of superfluid involved in the generation of glitches. In this context the activity of the youngest pulsar studied, the Crab pulsar, may be explained by quake-like activity within the crust. Pulsars with low spindown rates seem to exhibit mostly small glitches, matching well the decrease of their crustal superfluid. Through the analysis of glitch sizes it was found that the particular glitching behaviour of PSR J0537-6910 and the Vela pulsar may be shared by most Vela-like pulsars. These objects present most of their glitches with characteristic frequency and frequency derivative jumps, occurring at regular intervals of time. Their behaviour is different from other glitching pulsars of similar characteristic age.