毫秒脉冲星计时和原子时

The Timing of Millisecond Pulsars and Atomic Time

本文介绍毫秒脉冲星的时间频率和相关物理特征 ,阐述脉冲星计时研究的意义及国际上在脉冲星计时原理、方法和技术研究方面的最新进展。根据近年来对毫秒脉冲星PSR1 937+2 1和 1 85 5 +0 9等计时观测资料分析结果的报道 ,毫秒脉冲星计时精度已达 1× 1 0 - 7s,其自转频率稳定度可以和原子钟相媲美 ,其频率长期稳定度已达 2× 1 0 - 1 4 ( 0 6a≤τ≤ 2 .6a) ,并可望达到更高水平。由综合脉冲星时间算法而得到的毫秒脉冲星时比现代原子时有更高的长期稳定度。文中还对毫秒脉冲星计时中的关键问题作了讨论 ,并对此领域发展的前景给予了展望。

In this paper, the characteristic of time and frequency and physics of millisecond pulsars, and the significance of study, as well as the recent progress of millisecond pulsars timing theory and techniques in the world are described. The new results show that the precision for the timing observations of PSR1937 + 21 and PSR1855 + 09 millisecond pulsars is of the order of 1 × 10-7 s, and the stability of rotation of millisecond pulsars may rival that of the atomic clocks: the relative frequency stability for the averaging times is of order 2 × 10-14 (0.6 a [less-than or equal to] τ [less-than or equal to] 2.6 a), and might reach a higher level than that. An ensemble pulsar time can be deduced through a long-term stability algorithm, and it is shown that applying this algorithm to pulsar timing data, the pulsar time could become more stable than present atomic time, for averaging times of a few years. The key and difficult problems of pulsars study and the prospects for application of pulsar time in the future are also presented in this paper.