Pulsars, as rotating magnetised neutron stars got much attention during the last 40
years since their discovery. Observations revealed them to be gamma-ray emitters with
energies continuing up to the sub 100 GeV region. Better observation of this upper energy
cut-off region will serve to enhance our theoretical understanding of pulsars and neutron
stars.
The H-test has been used the most extensively in the latest periodicity searches,
whereas other tests have limited applications and are unsuited for pulsar searches. If the
probability distribution of a test statistic is not accurately known, it is possible that, after
searching through many trials, a probability for uniformity can be given, which is much
smaller than the real value, possibly leading to false detections. The problem with the H-test
is that one must obtain the distribution by simulation and cannot do so analytically.
For such simulations, random numbers are needed and are usually obtained by
utilising so-called pseudo-random number generators, which are not truly random. This
immediately renders such generators as useless for the simulation of the distribution of the H-test.
Alternatively there exists hardware random number generators, but such devices, apart
from always being slow, are also expensive, large and most still don't exhibit the true
random nature required.
This was the motivation behind the development of a hardware random number
generator which provides truly random U(0,l) numbers at very high speed and at low cost
The development of and results obtained by such a generator are discussed. The device
delivered statistically truly random numbers and was already used in a small simulation of
the H-test distribution. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Physics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/581 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Botha, Roelof Cornelis |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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