Kernel density estimators applied to fast timing hard X-ray observations of the crab pulsar

Abstract

The newly-proposed kernel density technique provides an objective way to search for pulsar signatures and to estimate the shape of the underlying source radiation emission. This new approach has been applied to some fast timing hard X-ray observations of the Crab pulsar obtained during the 1986 flight of the MIFRASO balloon-borne telescope, with a timing resolution of 0.33msec over the energy range 15 to 300 keV. The resulting pulse profile shows the classical bimodal density seen in other observations, and is compared with the traditional binned histogram method. The associated H m ̄ test for pulsar periodicity searches is reviewed as a flexible alternative to conventional tests.