PSRSalsa and the bi-drifting pulsar B1839–04

Abstract

PSRSalsa is a versatile open-source pulsar data-analysis project designed to obtain a comprehensive picture of the radio properties of your pulsar of choice. Here its usefulness is demonstrated through the analysis of the radio pulsar B1839–04, thereby revealing the extremely rare phenomenon of “bi-drifting” where the drift direction of subpulses is systematically different in different pulse profile components.

Searches for continuous-wave gravitational radiation

“…A nice confirmation of the link between LMXBs and recycled MSPs comes from "transitional millisecond pulsars" (tMSPs) in which accreting LMXB behavior alternates with detectable radio pulsations. The first tMSP found was PSR J1023þ0038 (Bond et al 2002;Thorstensen and Armstrong 2005;Archibald et al 2009), with two more systems since detected (Weltevrede et al 2018). The nominal ages of MSPs extend beyond 10 10 years, that is, some have apparent ages greater than that of the galaxy (or even that of the Universe).…”