Observations of four glitches in the young pulsar J1833−1034 and study of its glitch activity

Abstract

We present the results from timing observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope of the young pulsar J1833−1034 in the Galactic supernova remnant G21.5−0.9. We detect the presence of four glitches in this pulsar over a period of 5.5 yr, making it one of a set of pulsars that show fairly frequent glitches. The glitch amplitudes, characterized by the fractional change of the rotational frequency, range from 1 × 10−9 to 7 × 10−9, with no evidence for any appreciable relaxation of the rotational frequency after the glitches. The fractional changes observed in the frequency derivative are of the order of 10−5. We show conclusively that, in spite of having significant timing noise, the sudden irregularities like glitches detected in this pulsar cannot be modelled as smooth timing noise. Our timing solution also provides a stable estimate of the second derivative of the pulsar spin-down model, and a plausible value for the braking index of 1.857, which, like the value for other such young pulsars, is much less than the canonical value of 3.0. PSR J1833−1034 appears to belong to a class of pulsars exhibiting fairly frequent occurrence of low amplitude glitches. This is further supported by an estimate of the glitch activity parameter, , which is found to be significantly lower than the trend of glitch activity versus characteristic age (or spin frequency derivative) that a majority of the glitching pulsars follow. We present evidence for a class of such young pulsars, including the Crab, where higher internal temperature of the neutron star could be responsible for the nature of the observed glitch activity.