Rotating Radio Transients and Their Place Among Pulsars

Understand

Six years ago, the discovery of Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) marked what appeared to be a new type of sparsely-emitting pulsar.

• Since 2006, more than 70 of these objects have been discovered in single-pulse searches of archival and new surveys.
• With a continual inflow of new information about the RRAT population in the form of new discoveries, multi-frequency follow-ups, coherent timing solutions, and pulse rate statistics, a view is beginning to form of the place in the pulsar population RRATs hold.
• Here we review the properties of neutron stars discovered through single pulse searches.