A new method to analyse pulsar nulling phenomenon

Pulsar nulling is a phenomenon of sudden cessation of pulse emission for a number of periods. The nulling fraction was often used to characterize the phenomenon. We propose a new method to analyse pulsar nulling phenomenon, by involving two key parameters, the nulling degree, $χ$, which is defined as the angle in a rectangular coordinates for the numbers of nulling periods and bursting periods, and the nulling scale, $N$, which is defined as the effective length of the consecutive nulling periods and bursting periods. The nulling degree $χ$ can be calculated by $\tan χ= N_{\rm nulling} / N_{\rm bursting}$ and the mean is related to the nulling fraction, while the nulling scale, $N$, is also a newly defined fundamental parameter which indicates how often the nulling occurs. We determined the distributions of $χ$ and $N$ for 10 pulsars by using the data in literature. We found that the nulling degree $χ$ indicates the relative length of nulling to that of bursting, and the nulling scale $N$ is found to be related to the derivative of rotation frequency and hence the loss rate of rotational energy of pulsars. Their deviations reflect the randomness of the nulling process.

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