Abstract
An extensive pulse timing programme has been carried out over the past 10 years for several pulsars1–5. The timing observations revealed a wide range of different effects such as glitches, noise in the pulsar rotation and unexpectedly large second time derivatives of the rotation frequency. We suggest here that these unexpectedly large values of v̈ may be caused by a binary motion with an orbital period, Pb, longer than the span of timing observations. Even a distant planet of a relatively low mass (100 M⊕ for Pb = 50 yr) would influence v̈. In the case of PSR0329+54, besides a large v̈ term, a quasi-sinusoidal modulation shows up in timing residuals. This 3-yr periodicity may be caused by: (1) a change in pulse shape, (2) precession of a magnetic dipole axis, or (3) a small planet (m = 0.06 − 0.57 M⊕) orbiting the pulsar.
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Demiański, M., Prószyński, M. Does PSR0329 + 54 have companions?. Nature 282, 383–385 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/282383a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/282383a0
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