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Author: Bak Nielsen, A.-S. ×

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    The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey: Timing of 35 radio pulsars and an overview of the properties of the LOFAR pulsar discoveries
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2023) van der Wateren, E.; Bassa, C.G.; Cooper, S.; Grieβmeier, J.-M.; Stappers, B.W.; Hessels, J.W.T.; Kondratiev, V.I.; Michilli, D.; Tan, C.M.; Tiburzi, C.; Weltevrede, P.; Bak Nielsen, A.-S.; Carozzi, T.D.; Ciardi, B.; Cognard, I.; Dettmar, R.-J.; Karastergiou, A.; Kramer, M.; Künsemöller, J.; Osłowski, S.; Serylak, M.; Vocks, C.; Wucknitz, O.
    The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS) is the most sensitive untargeted radio pulsar survey performed at low radio frequencies (119-151 MHz) to date and has discovered 76 new radio pulsars, including the 23.5-s pulsar J0250+5854, which up until recently was the slowest spinning radio pulsar known. In this paper, we report on the timing solutions of 35 pulsars discovered by LOTAAS, which include a nulling pulsar and a mildly recycled pulsar, and thereby complete the full timing analysis of the LOTAAS pulsar discoveries. We give an overview of the findings from the full LOTAAS sample of 76 pulsars, discussing their pulse profiles, radio spectra, and timing parameters. We found that the pulse profiles of some of the pulsars show profile variations in time or frequency, and while some pulsars show signs of scattering, a large majority display no pulse broadening. The LOTAAS discoveries have on average steeper radio spectra and longer spin periods (1.4×), as well as lower spin-down rates (3.1×) compared to the known pulsar population. We discuss the cause of these differences and attribute them to a combination of selection effects of the LOTAAS survey as well as previous pulsar surveys, though we cannot rule out that older pulsars tend to have steeper radio spectra.
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    Dispersion measure variability for 36 millisecond pulsars at 150MHz with LOFAR
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2020) Donner, J.Y.; Verbiest, J.P.W.; Tiburzi, C.; Osłowski, S.; Künsemöller, J.; Bak Nielsen, A.-S.; Grießmeier, J.-M.; Serylak, M.; Kramer, M.; Anderson, J.M.; Wucknitz, O.; Keane, E.; Kondratiev, V.; Sobey, C.; McKee, J.W.; Bilous, A.V.; Breton, R.P.; Brüggen, M.; Ciardi, B.; Hoeft, M.; van Leeuwen, J.; Vocks, C.
    Context. Radio pulses from pulsars are affected by plasma dispersion, which results in a frequency-dependent propagation delay. Variations in the magnitude of this effect lead to an additional source of red noise in pulsar timing experiments, including pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) that aim to detect nanohertz gravitational waves. Aims. We aim to quantify the time-variable dispersion with much improved precision and characterise the spectrum of these variations. Methods. We use the pulsar timing technique to obtain highly precise dispersion measure (DM) time series. Our dataset consists of observations of 36 millisecond pulsars, which were observed for up to 7.1 yr with the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) telescope at a centre frequency of ~150 MHz. Seventeen of these sources were observed with a weekly cadence, while the rest were observed at monthly cadence. Results. We achieve a median DM precision of the order of 10−5 cm−3 pc for a significant fraction of our sources. We detect significant variations of the DM in all pulsars with a median DM uncertainty of less than 2 × 10−4 cm−3 pc. The noise contribution to pulsar timing experiments at higher frequencies is calculated to be at a level of 0.1–10 μs at 1.4 GHz over a timespan of a few years, which is in many cases larger than the typical timing precision of 1 μs or better that PTAs aim for. We found no evidence for a dependence of DM on radio frequency for any of the sources in our sample. Conclusions. The DM time series we obtained using LOFAR could in principle be used to correct higher-frequency data for the variations of the dispersive delay. However, there is currently the practical restriction that pulsars tend to provide either highly precise times of arrival (ToAs) at 1.4 GHz or a high DM precision at low frequencies, but not both, due to spectral properties. Combining the higher-frequency ToAs with those from LOFAR to measure the infinite-frequency ToA and DM would improve the result.