The NANOGrav 12.5-Year Data Set: The Frequency Dependence of Pulse Jitter in Precision Millisecond Pulsars
2018
Low-frequency gravitational-wave experiments require the highest timing precision from an array of the most stable
millisecond pulsars. Several known sources of noise on short timescales in single radio-
pulsarobservations are well described by a simple model of three components: template-fitting from a finite signal-to-noise ratio, pulse phase/amplitude
jitterfrom single-pulse stochasticity, and scintillation errors from short-timescale interstellar scattering variations. Currently template-fitting errors dominate, but as
radio telescopespush towards higher signal-to-noise ratios,
jitterbecomes the next dominant term for most
millisecond pulsars. Understanding the statistics of
jitterbecomes crucial for properly characterizing arrival-time uncertainties. We characterize the radio-frequency dependence of
jitterusing data on 48
pulsarsin the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) timing program. We detect significant
jitterin 43 of the
pulsarsand test several functional forms for its frequency dependence; we find significant frequency dependence for 30
pulsars. We find moderate correlations of rms
jitterwith pulse width (R = 0.62) and number of profile components (R = 0.40); the single-pulse rms
jitteris typically ~1% of pulse phase. The average frequency dependence for all
pulsarsusing a power-law model has index -0.42. We investigate the
jittervariations for the interpulse of PSR~B1937+21 and find no significant deviations from the main pulse rms
jitter. We also test the time-variation of
jitterin two
pulsarsand find that systematics likely bias the results for high-precision
pulsars.
Pulsar timing arrayanalyses must properly model
jitteras a significant component of the noise within the detector.
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