Multi-Method Timing of Transient Radio Pulsars with the GBT350 and GBNCC Surveys

TL;DR

Three pulsars discovered in the GBNCC and 350-MHz drift-scan surveys are timed using both single-pulse TOAs and standard integrated-profile methods. The analysis compares timing solutions from the two approaches and examines the distribution of single-pulse wait times and energies to illuminate emission behavior. Results show that timing parameters from both methods are generally consistent within $2\sigma$, while single-pulse timing exhibits higher RMS and reduced chi-squared due to pulse jitter. The wait-time distributions reveal short-timescale clustering, and the sources display low-level emission outside bright pulses with no giant pulses, suggesting they are more akin to highly nulling canonical pulsars than extreme RRATs, highlighting emission diversity among RRATs.

Abstract

We present the timing solutions for three radio pulsars discovered with the Green Bank North Celestial Cap (GBNCC) and 350-MHz Green Bank Telescope drift-scan surveys. These pulsars were initially discovered through their single-pulse emission and therefore designated as rotating radio transients (RRATs). Follow-up timing campaigns yielded a number of higher signal-to-noise summed pulse profiles for each pulsar, allowing us to obtain timing solutions both through single pulses as well as the standard method of time-integrating the pulsar's emission. We find that the two methods return timing parameters which are usually in agreement within two standard deviations, and have similar sized error bars. The single-pulse timing solutions have significantly higher RMS errors and reduced chi-squared values, likely due to pulse jitter. The distribution of wait times between detected single pulses indicates a significant amount of pulse clustering in time on short timescales from all three sources. For all sources, the presence of low-level emission outside of the sparse bright pulses and lack of giant pulses is more reminiscent of highly nulling canonical radio pulsars than extremely transient RRATs, highlighting the diversity of emission behavior observed from sources published as RRATs.