On the randomness of pulsar nulls

Abstract

Pulsar nulling is not always a random process; most pulsars, in fact, null non-randomly. The Wald-Wolfowitz statistical runs test is a simple diagnostic that pulsar astronomers can use to identify pulsars that have non-random nulls. It is not clear at this point how the dichotomy in pulsar nulling randomness is related to the underlying nulling phenomenon, but its nature suggests that there are at least two distinct reasons that pulsars null. © 2009 RAS.