Revisiting the subpulse drifting phenomenon in PSR J1822-2256: Drift modes, sparks, and emission heights

Abstract

Subpulse drifting in pulsar radio emission is considered to be one of the most promising phenomena for uncovering the underlying physical processes. Here, we present a detailed study of such a phenomenon in observations of PSR J1822-2256, made using the upgraded Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (uGMRT). Observations were made simultaneously using the band 3 (300-500 MHz) and band 4 (550-750 MHz) receivers of the uGMRT. The pulsar is known to exhibit subpulse drifting, mode changing, and nulling. Our observations reveal four distinct subpulse drifting modes of emission (A, B, C, and D) for this pulsar, with the drift periodicities of 17.9P1, 5.8P1, 8P1, and 14.1P1, respectively (where P1 is the pulsar rotation period), two of which exhibit some new features that were not reported in the previous studies. We also investigate the possible spark configuration, characterized by the number of sparks (n) in the carousel patterns of these four drift modes, and our analysis suggests two representative solutions for the number of sparks for a carousel rotation period, P4, which lies in the range of 13-16. The large frequency coverage of our data (300-750 MHz) is also leveraged to explore the frequency dependence of single-pulse characteristics of the pulsar emission, particularly the frequency-dependent subpulse behaviour and the emission heights for the observed drift modes. Our analysis suggests a clear modal dependence of inferred emission heights. We discuss the implications for the pulsar emission mechanism and its relation to the proposed spark configuration. © 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.