Pulsar nulling and mode changing

With its relatively long observation time per pointing, the Parkes multibeam survey was effective in detecting nulling pulsars. We have made 2-h observations of 23 pulsars which showed evidence for pulse nulling or mode changing in the survey data. Because of the low flux density of these pulsars, in most cases averaging times of between 10 and 60 s were necessary and so this analysis is insensitive to very short nulls. Seven of the pulsars had null fractions of more than 40 per cent with the largest having a lower limit of 95 per cent. Mode changes were observed in six pulsars with clear relationships between nulling and mode changing in some cases. Combined with earlier results, the data suggest that large null fractions are more related to large characteristic age than to long pulse period. The observations suggest that nulling and mode changing are different manifestations of the same phenomenon.

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