On the bimodal nature of the distributions of pulsar glitch sizes

• Main Authors: Eya, I. O, Iyida, E. U, Eze, C. I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 09-07-2020
• Subjects: Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2007.04794

Pulsar glitches are sudden spin-ups in pulsar spin frequency ($\nu$). The
glitch size, $\Delta\nu/\nu$, is a key parameter in any mechanism puts across
towards the understanding of the events.However, the distribution of the glitch
sizes has persistently been bimodal.This bimodal nature could be intrinsic or
otherwise. In this paper, the glitch size distribution is bisected at
$\Delta\nu/\nu = 10^{-7}$ with $\Delta\nu/\nu < 10^{-7}$ being regarded as
small size glitches (SSG), while those of $\Delta\nu/\nu > 10^{-7}$ are taken
as large size glitches (LSG).The magnitude of SSGis scaled to that of LSG and
tested for similarity.In pulsars with mixture of glitch sizes, Lilliefore test
is used to identify the distribution pattern of SSGs and LSGs in such pulsars.
The result indicates that each half of the size distribution is fundamentally
different from one another. LSGs are seen to be normally distributed, while the
SSGs are lognormal.