Daily Image
09-08-2010
Nulling Phenomena in PSR B1112+50
| Submitter: | Vishal Gajjar |
| Description: | Pulsars, as their name suggests, are known to emit a regular train of pulses with a well defined period. However, a handful of pulsars show a peculiar phenomena known as 'pulsar nulling'. During the null phase, a pulsar shows a sudden cessation of the pulsed emission and it goes into a mode in which the pulsar is not detected anymore. Pulsars can go into a null state for an indefinite period of time, as is seen in many pulsars (~100). Different nulling pulsars show a different fraction of null pulses. Nulling was first believed to be associated with the age of the pulsar (i.e. as the pulsar gets older it dies with an increasing faction of nulling), but later observations of more pulsars of this class have ruled out this hypothesis. This image shows a train of pulses observed from PSR B1112+50 using the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT), India. This pulsar shows prominent nulling behaviour as it is seen to go into the non-detectable mode for several periods in between normal pulsation. Currently I am working at Astron as a Summerstudent under the supervision of Vlad Kondratiev and Jason Hessels, but in my normal life I am doing, as part of my PhD work, a detailed study of nulling pulsars using the GMRT. |
| Copyright: | Vishal Gajjar |
| Tweet |  |