Abstract
IN the past ten years, the Vela pulsar PSR 0833–45 has undergone several large, discontinuous changes—glitches—in its pulsation period. On 24 December 1988, we were making continuous radio measurements of the Vela pulsar with a 2-min time resolution when a glitch occurred. Here we report our observations, which on the day of the glitch extend from 12 h before the event to 6 h after and represent the first time a glitch has been caught as it happened. The period decrease occurred without warning and in less than 2 min; an exponential recovery similar to previously observed post-glitch behaviour began immediately. Observations were made at 635 MHz and 950 MHz, and the lower frequency signal showed an additional delay starting at the time of the glitch and continuing for about 35 days. This behaviour is consistent with a small increase in dispersion measure or a change in the pulsar's magnetic field configuration. After the glitch, the arrival times of pulses at both frequencies differed from the smoothly predicted times according to a damped sinusoidal oscillation with a period of about 25 days.
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McCulloch, P., Hamilton, P., McConnell, D. et al. The Vela glitch of Christmas 1988. Nature 346, 822–824 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1038/346822a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/346822a0
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