A 24 HR GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO ASSESS PRECISION TIMING OF THE MILLISECOND PULSAR J1713+0747

T. Dolch (1) , M. T. Lam (2) , J. Cordes (2) , S. Chatterjee (2) , C. Bassa (3, 2) , B. Bhattacharyya (3, 4) , D. J. Champion (5) , Ismaël Cognard (6, 7) , K. Crowter (8) , P. B. Demorest (9) , J. W. T. Hessels (10, 11) , G. Janssen (3) , F. A. Jenet (12) , G. Jones (13) , C. Jordan (14) , R. Karuppusamy (5) , M. Keith (15) , V. Kondratiev (10) , M. Kramer (16) , P. Lazarus (17) , T. J. W. Lazio (18) , K. J. Lee (19) , M. A. Mclaughlin (20) , J. Roy (4) , R. M. Shannon (21) , I. Stairs (22) , K. Stovall (23) , J. P. W. Verbiest (5) , D. R. Madison (24) , N. Palliyaguru (20) , D. Perrodin (25) , S. Ransom (26) , B. Stappers (3) , W. W. Zhu (22) , S. Dai (27) , G. Desvignes (6) , Lucas Guillemot (6, 7) , K. Liu (7) , A. Lyne (3) , B. B. P. Perera (3) , E. Petroff (15) , J. M. Rankin (28) , R. Smits (10)

1 Oberlin College
2 Cornell University [New York]
3 Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics
4 IUCAA - Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics [Pune]
5 MPIFR - Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
6 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
7 USN - Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay
8 University of British Colombia
9 NRAO - National Radio Astronomy Observatory [Socorro]
10 ASTRON - Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
11 UvA - University of Amsterdam [Amsterdam]
12 CARA - Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy
13 CoralCoE - ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
14 JBCA - Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics
15 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
16 VUMC - Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre
17 AEI - Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik ( Albert-Einstein-Institut )
18 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
19 School of Medical Sciences - Institute of Medical Sciences
20 Department of Physics, West Virginia University
21 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
22 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia
23 CGWA - Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy
24 Department of Physics [Rolla]
25 OAC - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
26 NRAO - National Radio Astronomy Observatory
27 Laboratory of Infrared Material and Devices
28 University of Vermont [Burlington]

The radio millisecond pulsar J1713+0747 is regarded as one of the highest-precision clocks in the sky and is regularly timed for the purpose of detecting gravitational waves. The International Pulsar Timing Array Collaboration undertook a 24 hr global observation of PSR J1713+0747 in an effort to better quantify sources of timing noise in this pulsar, particularly on intermediate (1-24 hr) timescales. We observed the pulsar continuously over 24 hr with the Arecibo, Effelsberg, GMRT, Green Bank, LOFAR, Lovell, Nançay, Parkes, and WSRT radio telescopes. The combined pulse times-of-arrival presented here provide an estimate of what sources of timing noise, excluding DM variations, would be present as compared to an idealized \sqrt{N} improvement in timing precision, where N is the number of pulses analyzed. In the case of this particular pulsar, we find that intrinsic pulse phase jitter dominates arrival time precision when the signal-to-noise ratio of single pulses exceeds unity, as measured using the eight telescopes that observed at L band/1.4 GHz. We present first results of specific phenomena probed on the unusually long timescale (for a single continuous observing session) of tens of hours, in particular interstellar scintillation, and discuss the degree to which scintillation and profile evolution affect precision timing. This paper presents the data set as a basis for future, deeper studies.

Keywords: gravitational waves; ISM: structure; pulsars: individual: PSR J1713+0747

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

T. Dolch, M. T. Lam, J. Cordes, S. Chatterjee, C. Bassa, et al.. A 24 HR GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO ASSESS PRECISION TIMING OF THE MILLISECOND PULSAR J1713+0747. The Astrophysical Journal, 2014, 794 (1), 14 p. ⟨10.1088/0004-637X/794/1/21⟩. ⟨insu-01270525⟩