Prospects for High-Precision Pulsar Timing

Understand

Timing pulses of pulsars has proved to be a most powerful technique useful to a host of research areas in astronomy and physics.

• Importantly, the precision of this timing is not only affected by radiometer noise, but also by intrinsic pulse shape changes, interstellar medium (ISM) evolution, instrumental distortions, etc.
• In this paper we review the known causes of pulse shape variations and assess their effect on the precision and accuracy of a single measurement of pulse arrival time with current instrumentation.
• Throughout this analysis we use the brightest and most precisely timed millisecond pulsar (MSP), PSR J0437-4715, as a case study, and develop a set of diagnostic tools to evaluate profile stability in timing observations.