Article

DISCOVERY AND FOLLOW-UP OF ROTATING RADIO TRANSIENTS WITH THE GREEN BANK AND LOFAR TELESCOPES

C. Karako-ArgamanDepartment of Physics, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8, Canada;V. M. KaspiDepartment of Physics, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8, Canada;R. S. LynchNational Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 2, Green Bank, WV 24944, USAJ. W. T. HesselsASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The NetherlandsV. I. KondratievASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The NetherlandsM. A. McLaughlinDepartment of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USAS. M. RansomNational Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USAA. M. ArchibaldASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The NetherlandsJ. BoylesDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USAF. A. JenetD. L. KaplanDepartment of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1582, USAL. LevinDepartment of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USAD. R. LorimerDepartment of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USAE. C. MadsenDepartment of Physics, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8, Canada;M. S. E. RobertsX. SiemensDepartment of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USAI. H. StairsDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, CanadaK. StovallJ. K. SwiggumDepartment of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USAJ. van LeeuwenASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands

2015en

ABI

Abstract

We have discovered 21 Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) in data from the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) 350 MHz Drift-scan and the Green Bank North Celestial Cap pulsar surveys using a new candidate sifting algorithm. RRATs are pulsars with sporadic emission that are detected through their bright single pulses rather than Fourier domain searches. We have developed RRATtrap, a single-pulse sifting algorithm that can be integrated into pulsar survey data analysis pipelines in order to find RRATs and Fast Radio Bursts. We have conducted follow-up observations of our newly discovered sources at several radio frequencies using the GBT and Low Frequency Array, yielding improved positions and measurements of their periods, dispersion measures (DMs), and burst rates, as well as phase-coherent timing solutions for four of them. The new RRATs have DMs ranging from 15 to 97 pc cm 3 -, periods of 240 ms to 3.4 s, and estimated burst rates of 20 to 400 pulses hr -1 at 350 MHz. We use this new sample of RRATs to perform statistical comparisons between RRATs and canonical pulsars in order to shed light on the relationship between the two populations. We find that the DM and spatial distributions of the RRATs agree with those of the pulsars found in the same survey. We find evidence that slower pulsars (i.e., P 200 > ms) are preferentially more likely to emit bright single pulses than are faster pulsars (P 200 < ms), although this conclusion is tentative. Our results are consistent with the proposed link between RRATs, transient pulsars, and canonical pulsars as sources in various parts of the pulse activity spectrum.

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/809/1/67

Citations and references

Cited by 20 references

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