Long-term study of extreme giant pulses from PSR B0950+08 with AARTFAAC

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1996
• Publication Date: 2020-07-09T19:10:50Z
• Authors: Mark Kuiack; Ralph A M J Wijers; Antonia Rowlinson; Aleksandar Shulevski; Folkert Huizinga; Gijs Molenaar; Peeyush Prasad
• Keywords: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE); 550; 13. Climate action; FOS: Physical sciences; Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena; 520

ABSTRACT We report on the detection of extreme giant pulses (GPs) from one of the oldest known pulsars, the highly variable PSR B0950+08, with the Amsterdam-ASTRON Radio Transient Facility And Analysis Centre (AARTFAAC), a parallel transient detection instrument operating as a subsystem of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR). During processing of our Northern Hemisphere survey for low-frequency radio transients, a sample of 275 pulses with fluences ranging from 42 to 177 kJy ms were detected in one-second snapshot images. The brightest pulses are an order of magnitude brighter than those previously reported at 42 and 74 MHz, on par with the levels observed in a previous long-term study at 103 MHz. Both their rate and fluence distribution differ between and within the various studies done to date. The GP rate is highly variable, from 0 to 30 per hour, with only two 3-h observations accounting for nearly half of the pulses detected in the 96 h surveyed. It does not vary significantly within a few-hour observation, but can vary strongly one from day to the next. The spectra appear strongly and variably structured, with emission sometimes confined to a single 195.3 kHz subband, and the pulse spectra changing on a time-scale of order 10 min.