| Description |
Pulsars are often used as highly accurate astrophysical clocks due to their stable rotation and emission properties. Departures from this stability have been noted in recent years, with a growing number of pulsars showing unexpected variations in their rotation rate and their radio emission. Links have also been noticed between these two types of variations, which could provide clues to their cause. This variability has been recorded on timescales of months and years, and also of seconds and minutes, but variability on an intermediate timescale has not yet been observed. We propose to observe 4 pulsars (already known to vary on short timescales) on a weekly basis and monitor their radio emission and rotation properties. We hope to learn more about how short and long timescale variations are connected in these objects, to understand their causes and to improve the accuracy of our astrophysical clocks.
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