A New Powerful Test for Periodic Pulsed Emission of High-Energy Photons

Swanepoel, J. W. H.; de Beer, C. F.

South Africa

Abstract

A novel stastistical test devised for detecting periodic pulsations in a series of photon arrival times is found to perform powerfully in the detection of multiple, narrow peaked light curve shapes against a uniform background, especially if the light curve has multiple peaks. The statistical test has been applied to observations of the first 1350 COS B high-energy gamma-ray events from PSR 0833-45, the Vela pulsar.

1990 The Astrophysical Journal
COS-B 16