The rotate of pulsar is very stable, but pulsar emission is known to be complex. Pulsars that only emit occasionally are not only difficult to detect, but pose a fundamental challenge to understanding pulsar emission physics. How the pulsar magnetospheric changes so severely as to halt emission on short time scales is unclear. 

These pulsars are called as intermittent pulsar and PSR J1107–5907 is one of them. The pulsar was identified to have three distinct emission states: a bright state with a wide profile, a weak state with a narrow profile and an off state. In order to improve our understanding of the pulsar, we have identified archival data sets from the Parkes radio telescope. The results have been published on the Astrophysical Journal（ApJ 2020, 889, 6.)

We find that the emission never switches from the bright state to the weak state, but instead always transitions to the “off” state. Previous work had suggested the identification of the “off” state as an extreme manifestation of the weak state. However, the connection between the “off” and bright emission reported here suggests that the emission can be interpreted as undergoing only two emission states: a “bursting” state consisting of both bright pulses and nulls, and the weak emission state.

Contact: WANG Jingbo

Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Email: wangjingbo@xao.ac.cn