Nulling and subpulse drifting in PSR J1727-2739

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the emission properties of PSR J1727−2739, whose mean pulse profile has two main components, by analysing five single-pulse observations made using the Parkes 64-m radio telescope with a central frequency of 1369 MHz between 2014 April and October. The total observation time is about 6.1 hours which contains 16718 pulses after removal of radio frequency interference (RFI). Previous studies reveal that PSR J1727−2739 exhibits both nulling and subpulse drifting. We estimate the nulling fraction to be 66%±1.4%, which is consistent with previously published results. In addition to the previously known subpulse drifting in the leading component, we also explore the drifting properties for the trailing component. We observe two distinct drift modes whose vertical drift band separations ( 3 ) are consistent with earlier studies. We find that both profile components share the same drift periodicity 3 in a certain drift mode, but the measured horizontal separations ( 2 ) are quite different for them. That is, PSR J1727−2739 is a pulsar showing both changes of drift periodicity 3 between different drift modes and drift rate variations between components in a given drift mode. Pulsars exhibiting nulling along with drift mode changing, such as PSR J1727−2739, give an unique opportunity to investigate the physical mechanism of these phenomena.