2003/06/30 by F. A. Jenet, Fredrick Jenet, J. Gil +1
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Acoustics #Astrophysics #Computational physics #Detector #Emission intensity #GNSS positioning and interference #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Intensity (physics) #Modulation (music) #Modulation index #Optics #Physics #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Pulse (music) #Pulse-width modulation #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/379501
published as Astrophys.J. 596 (2003) L215-L218 · Accepted by ApJ Letters for the October 20th issue
openalex publication_date 2003/09/30 · arxiv created 2003/10/08 · arxiv updated 2016/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This Letter explores the possibility of testing pulsar radio emission models by observing pulse-to-pulse intensity modulation. It is shown that a relationship between a pulsar's period, period derivative, and intensity modulation is a natural consequence of at least one theoretical model of radio pulsar emission. It is proposed that other models may also predict a similar correlation. The exact form of the relationship will depend on the model in question. Hence, observations of intensity modulation should be able to determine the validity of the various emission models. In an attempt to search for the predicted dependencies, the modulation properties of a set of 12 pulsars are studied. These data are suggestive, but they are unable to differentiate between three possibilities for the emission process. Future observations will be able to confirm these results and determine whether or not specific emission models are viable.