Speaker
Mr
Gregory Ashton
(University of Southamton)
Description
Variability in the arrival times of pulsars, often collectively known as timing
noise, poses a significant opportunity to learn about the physics of neutron
stars. The diversity of observed timing noise is matched by the number of the
models attempting to explain the phenomenon, but no single model can claim to provide a
complete explanation. Recent results in the literature suggest that periodic,
or at least quasi-periodic variations may explain some of the observed timing
noise. I will present work studying periodic variations in PSR B1828-11, a
pulsar that has been used to verify two leading models capable of
explaining the periodic variations: magnetospheric switching and precession. I
will demonstrate how we can build a statistical model to make inferences about
these models, and do a Bayesian model comparison to quantify which the data
prefers.
Primary author
Mr
Gregory Ashton
(University of Southamton)
Co-authors
Dr
Ian Jones
(University of Southampton)
Dr
Reinhard Prix
(AEI Hannover)
