The Two Emission States of PSR B1534+12

Wang, Shuangqiang

We have observed PSR~B1534+12 (J1537+1155), a pulsar with a neutron star companion, using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST).  We find that this pulsar shows two distinct emission states: a weak state with a wide pulse profile and a burst state with a narrow pulse profile.   The weak state is always present. The pulse energy of the weak state follows a normal distribution, while that of the burst state follows a power-law distribution. The amplitude of the single pulse emission in the burst state varies significantly; the peak flux intensity of the brightest pulse is 334 times stronger than that of the average pulse. Our results connect the two giant pulse pulsar classes. We also examined the timing precision using only bright pulses, which shows no demonstrable improvement because of the effect of the pulse jitter. We quantified the jitter noise level for this pulsar which can potentially improve the timing precision.