Search for short period pulsars and its implication for the period distribution of pulsars

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5799699

Stokes, G H

This thesis describes the Princeton-NRAO Phase II pulsar survey, carried out at 390 MHz using the 92-m telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia. This search is the first to have sensitivity to pulsars with periods as short as 0.004 s over a large portion of the galatic plane. Twenty new pulsars were discovered and 67 previously known ones were detected. Though 6 pulsars were detected with periods below 0.200 s, none were found with periods shorter than 0.100 s. This result places strong upper limits on the population of short-period pulsars, and effectively rules out the existence of a large, previously unobserved pulsar population with periods between 0.005 and 0.100 s. The observed period distribution is in good agreement with that predicted by the model of Lyne, Manchester, and Taylor (1985), and can be accounted for without invoking either late turn-on or spin-up of pulsars.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5799699
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640102* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
DETECTION
DISTRIBUTION
FREQUENCY RANGE
PULSARS