Abstract
Radio pulsars show remarkable clock-like stability, which make them useful astronomy tools in experiments to test equation of state of neutron stars and detecting gravitational waves using pulsar timing techniques. A brief review of relevant astrophysical experiments is provided in this paper highlighting the current state-of-the-art of these experiments. A program to monitor frequently glitching pulsars with Indian radio telescopes using high cadence observations is presented, with illustrations of glitches detected in this program, including the largest ever glitch in PSR B0531+21. An Indian initiative to discover sub-\(\mu \)Hz gravitational waves, called Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA), is also described briefly, where time-of-arrival uncertainties and post-fit residuals of the order of \(\mu \)s are already achievable, comparable to other international pulsar timing array experiments. While timing the glitches and their recoveries are likely to provide constraints on the structure of neutron stars, InPTA will provide upper limits on sub-\(\mu \)Hz gravitational waves apart from auxiliary pulsar science. Future directions for these experiments are outlined.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Dispersion Measure is the integrated column density of electrons in the line-of-sight.
B. C. Joshi, A. Gopakumar, M. Bagchi, Y. Gupta, A. Choudhary, Arun Naidu, S. Abhimanyu, D. Pathak, M. A. Krishnakumar, P. K. Manoharan, M. Surnis, N. Dhanda Batra, P. Arumugasamy, K. Dey, S. Desai, S. Bethapudi, Y. Maan and L. Dey.
Phase connected solution refers to a timing model, which accounts for every pulsar rotation without phase ambiguities.
References
Abbott B. P., Abbott R., Abbott T. D. et al. 2016, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102
Abbott B. P., Abbott R., Abbott T. D. et al. 2017, ApJ, 851, L35
Alpar M. A. 1977, ApJ, 213, 527
Anderson P. W., Itoh N. 1975, Nature, 256, 25
Andersson N., Glampedakis K., Ho W. C. G., Espinoza C. M. 2012, Phys. Rev. Lett., 109, 241103
Arzoumanian Z., Brazier A., Burke-Spolaor S. et al. 2015, ApJ, 810, 150
Arzoumanian Z., Baker P. T., Brazier A. et al. 2018, ApJ, 859, 47
Babak S., Petiteau A., Sesana A. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 455, 1665
Basu A., Char P., Nandi R., Joshi B. C., Bandyopadhyay D. 2018a, ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1806.01521
Basu A., Joshi B. C., Bhattacharya D. et al. 2018b, arXiv e-prints, arXiv:1806.01066
Baym G., Bethe H. A., Pethick C. J. 1971, Nucl. Phys. A, 175, 225
Blanchet L., Damour T. 1992, Phys. Rev. D, 46, 4304
Boynton P. E., Groth E. J., Hutchinson D. P. et al. 1972, ApJ, 175, 217
Braginskii V. B., Grishchuk L. P. 1985, Zhurnal Eksperimentalnoi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki, 89, 744
Braginskii V. B., Thorne K. S. 1987, Nature, 327, 123
Chamel N. 2013, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110, 011101
Chamel N., Carter B. 2006, MNRAS, 368, 796
Cordes J. M. 1980, ApJ, 237, 216
Cordes J. M., Helfand D. J. 1980, ApJ, 239, 640
Cordes J. M., Shannon R. M., Stinebring D. R. 2016, ApJ, 817, 16
Delsate T., Chamel N., Gurlebeck N. et al. 2016, Phys. Rev. D, 94, 023008
Demorest P. B., Ferdman R. D., Gonzalez M. E. et al. 2013, ApJ, 762, 94
Desvignes G., Caballero R. N., Lentati L. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 458, 3341
Detweiler S. 1979, ApJ, 234, 1100
Dvorkin I., Barausse E. 2017, MNRAS, 470, 4547
Edwards R. T., Hobbs G. B., Manchester R. N. 2006, MNRAS, 372, 1549
Einstein A. 1918, Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich Preuischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), Seite 154–167
Espinoza C. M., Lyne A. G., Stappers B. W., Kramer, M. 2011, MNRAS, 414, 1679
Favata M. 2010, Class. Quantum Gravit., 27, 084036
Foster R. S., Backer, D. C. 1990, ApJ, 361, 300
Guo Y. J., Lee K. J., Caballero R. N. 2018, MNRAS, 475, 3644
Gupta Y., Joshi B. C., Gopakumar A. et al. 2016, GMRT Obs. Propos., 30-043, 1
Gupta Y., Ajithkumar B., Kale H. S. et al. 2017, Curr. Sci., 113, 707
Haskell B., Melatos A. 2015, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 24, 1530008
Heinke C. O., Ho W. C. G. 2010, ApJL, 719, L167
Hellings R. W., Downs G. S. 1983, ApJ, 265, L39
Hewish A., Bell S. J., Pilkington J. D. H., Scott P. F., Collins R. A. 1968, Nature, 217, 709
Ho W. C. G., Espinoza C. M., Antonopoulou D., Andersson N. 2015, Sci. Adv., 1, e1500578
Hulse R. A., Taylor J. H. 1975, ApJ, 195, L51
Jaffe A. H., Backer, D. C. 2003, ApJ, 583, 616
Joshi B. C. 2013, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 22, 1341008
Joshi B. C., Gopakumar A., Bagchi M. et al. 2015, GMRT Obs. Propos., 29-064, 1
Krawczyk A., Lyne A. G., Gil J. A., Joshi B. C. 2003, MNRAS, 340, 1087
Krishnakumar M. A., Joshi B. C., Basu A., Manoharan P. K. 2017, The Astronomers Telegram, 10947
Lazio T. J. W., Bhaskaran S., Cutler C. et al. 2018, ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1801.02898
Link B. 2009, Phys. Rev. Lett., 102, 131101
Link B. 2012a, MNRAS, 421, 2682
Link B. 2012b, MNRAS, 422, 1640
Link B., Epstein R. I., Lattimer J. M. 1999, Phys. Rev. Lett., 83, 3362
Link B., Epstein R. I., van Riper K. A. 1992, Nature, 359, 616
Lyne A. G., Shemar S. L., Graham-Smith F. 2000, MNRAS, 315, 534
Manchester R. N., Hobbs G. B., Teoh A., Hobbs M. 2005, AJ, 129, 1993
Manchester R. N., Hobbs G., Bailes M. et al. 2013, Proc. Astr. Soc. Aust., 30, 17
Piekarewicz J., Fattoyev F. J., Horowitz C. J. 2014, Phys. Rev. C, 90, 015803
Pines D., Shaham J. 1972, Phys. Earth Planet. Inter., 6, 103
Radhakrishnan V., Manchester R. N. 1969, Nature, 222, 228
Reddy S. H., Kudale S., Gokhale U. et al. 2017, J. Astronom. Instrum., 6, 1641011
Sazhin M. V. 1978, Sov. Astron., 22, 36
Sesana A., Shankar F., Bernardi M., Sheth R. K. 2016, MNRAS, 463, L6
Sesana A., Vecchio A., Colacino C. N. 2008, MNRAS, 390, 192
Sesana A., Vecchio A., Volonteri M. 2009, MNRAS, 394, 2255
Shternin P. S., Yakovlev D. G., Heinke C. O., Ho W. C. G., Patnaude D. J. 2011, MNRAS, 412, L108
Siemens X., Ellis J., Jenet F., Romano J. D. 2013, Class. Quantum Gravit., 30, 224015
Sillanpää A., Haarala S., Valtonen M. J., Sundelius B., Byrd G. G. 1988, ApJ, 325, 628
Stairs I. H. 2003, 5, URL (cited on 2008/02/16). http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2003-5
Swarup G., Ananthakrishnan S., Kapahi V. K. et al. 1991, Curr. Sci., 60, 95
Swarup G., Sarma N. V. G., Joshi M. N. et al. 1971, Nat. Phys. Sci., 230, 185
Taylor J. H. 1992, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A, 341, 117
Thorne K. S. 1992, Phys. Rev. D, 45, 520
Valtonen M. J., Ciprini S., Lehto H. J. 2012, MNRAS, 427, 77
Valtonen M. J., Lehto H. J., Takalo L. O., Sillanpää A. 2011a, ApJ, 729, 33
Valtonen M. J., Mikkola S., Lehto H. J. et al. 2011b, ApJ, 742, 22
Valtonen M. J., Mikkola S., Merritt D. et al. 2010, ApJ, 709, 725
Valtonen M. J., Zola S., Ciprini S. et al. 2016, ApJL, 819, L37
Verbiest J. P. W., Lentati L., Hobbs G. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 458, 1267
Weisberg J. M., Nice D. J., Taylor J. H. 2010, ApJ, 722, 1030
Yu M., Manchester R. N., Hobbs G. et al. 2013, MNRAS, 429, 688
Zel’dovich Y. B., Polnarev A. G. 1974, Soviet Astron., 18, 17
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge help and support provided by the staff at Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty and Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope during these observations. The ORT and the GMRT are operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics. BCJ, MAK and PKM acknowledge support from DST-SERB Grant EMR/2015/000515. YM acknowledges use of the ERC funding from the (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 617199.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Joshi, B.C., Arumugasamy, P., Bagchi, M. et al. Precision pulsar timing with the ORT and the GMRT and its applications in pulsar astrophysics. J Astrophys Astron 39, 51 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-018-9549-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-018-9549-y