<p>Naively, I would say that you're looking for a periodicity in the luminosity.  What about multiplying the probability with the photon energy, and binning those data?  That would allow you to use an FFT.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-30T16:57:16.163Z
2014-05-30T16:57:16.163Z
AstroFloyd
<p>I've got a file which contains data about photons coming from some pulsar. For each photon I know: a) time, when it was registered, b) a probability that this photon came from pulsar but not from galactic background, c) energy of a photon. My task is to find a period of pulsar. 
I suppose I have to use FFT to find a period but there are two issues. First of all, there are lots of photons with low probability (background photons), so I have to somehow select relevant photons. Second, I've got an unequally spaced data, so there is a problem with using FFT.
I am a novice in data processing. Could you please give me links to some lectures or books where this topic is discussed clearly?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-29T03:44:22.230Z
what kind of file is it? Is it FITS file? from what facility? How did you (if it was you) extract the file ?
Py-ser
<data-analysis>
How to determine period of pulsar?
user43283
# How to determine period of pulsar?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-05-28)

I've got a file which contains data about photons coming from some pulsar. For each photon I know: a) time, when it was registered, b) a probability that this photon came from pulsar but not from galactic background, c) energy of a photon. My task is to find a period of pulsar.
I suppose I have to use FFT to find a period but there are two issues. First of all, there are lots of photons with low probability (background photons), so I have to somehow select relevant photons. Second, I've got an unequally spaced data, so there is a problem with using FFT.
I am a novice in data processing. Could you please give me links to some lectures or books where this topic is discussed clearly?

**Tags:** data-analysis
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: what kind of file is it? Is it FITS file? from what facility? How did you (if it was you) extract the file ?  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-05-30. Score: 2

Naively, I would say that you're looking for a periodicity in the luminosity. What about multiplying the probability with the photon energy, and binning those data? That would allow you to use an FFT.


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