Fast approximate maximum likelihood period estimation from incomplete timing data

To estimate the period of a periodic point process from noisy and incomplete observations, the classical periodogram algorithm is modified. The original periodogram algorithm yields an estimate by performing grid search of the peak of a spectrum, which is equivalent to the periodogram of the periodic point process, thus its performance is found to be sensitive to the chosen grid spacing. This paper derives a novel grid spacing formula, after finding a lower bound of the width of the spectral mainlobe. By employing this formula, the proposed new estimator can determine an appropriate grid spacing adaptively, and is able to yield approximate maximum likelihood estimate （MLE） with a computational complexity of O（n2）. Experimental results prove that the proposed estimator can achieve better trade-off between statistical accuracy and complexity, as compared to existing methods. Simulations also show that the derived grid spacing formula is also applicable to other estimators that operate similarly by grid search.

A novel period estimation method for X-ray pulsars based on frequency subdivision

Period estimation of X-ray pulsars plays an important role in X-ray pulsar based navigation （XPNAV）. The fast Lomb periodogram is suitable for period estimation of X-ray pulsars, but its performance in terms of frequency resolution is limited by data length and observation time. Longer observation time or oversampling can be employed to improve frequency analysis results, but with greatly increased computational complexity and large amounts of sampling data. This greatly restricts real-time autonomous navigation based on X-ray pulsars. To resolve this issue, a new method based on frequency subdivision and the continuous Lomb periodogram （CLP） is proposed to improve precision of period estimation using short-time observation data. In the proposed method, an initial frequency is first calculated using fast Lomb periodogram. Then frequency subdivision is per- formed near the initial frequency to obtain frequencies with higher precision. Finally, a refined period is achieved by calculating the CLP in the obtained frequencies. Real data experiments show that when observation time is shorter than 135 s, the proposed method improves period estimation precision by 1-3 orders of magnitude compared with the fast Lomb periodogram and fast Fourier transform （FFT） methods, with only a slight increase in computational complexity. Furthermore, the proposed method performs better than efsearch （a period estimation method of HEAsoft） with lower computational complexity. The proposed method is suitable for estimating periods of X-ray pulsars and obtaining the rotation period of variable stars and other celestial bodies.

Influence of the environmental noise on determining the period of a torsion pendulum

The environmental noise can restrict the accuracy of period estimation since the torsion pendulum is sensitive to weak forces. Two typical models for the environmental noise are proposed to make an evaluation. Generally, the stationary environmental noise is modeled as a white noise, and contributes to the period uncertainty as a function of the initial amplitude, the quality factor, the variance of noise and the time length. As to a sudden sharp disturbance acting on the pendulum, a narrow impulse model is constructed. It results in a sharp jump in the phase difference, which can be excluded with the 3σ criterion for a correction. An experimental data analysis for the measurement of the gravitational constant G with the time-of-swing method shows that the period uncertainty due to the environmental noise is about one and a half times the fundamental thermal noise limit. Though this result is dependent on the ambient environment, the analysis is instructive to improve the measurement accuracy of experiments.

PERIODIC SOLUTIONS OF THIRD-ORDER FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH VARIABLE COEFFICIENTS

The sufficient condition for the existence of2 π- periodic solutions of the following third- order functional differential equations with variable coefficients a(t) x (t) +bx″2 k- 1(t) +cx′2 k- 1(t) + 2 k- 1 i=1 cixi(t) +g(x(t-τ) ) =p(t) =p(t+2π) is obtained.The approach is based on the abstract continuation theorem from Mawhin and the a- priori estimate of periodic solutions