A detailed observation of microglitch phenomenon in relatively slow radio pulsars is presented .
Our analyses for these small amplitude jumps in pulse rotation frequency ( \nu ) and/or spin down rate ( \dot { \nu } ) combine the traditional manual detection method ( which hinges on careful visual inspections of the residuals of pulse phase residuals ) and a new , and perhaps more objective , automated search technique ( which exploits the power of the computer , rather than the eyes , for resolving discrete events in pulsar spin parameters ) .
The results of the analyses of a sample of 26 radio pulsars reveal that : ( i ) only 20 pulsars exhibit significant fluctuations in their arrival times to be considered suitable for meaningful microglitch analyses ; ( ii ) a phenomenal 299 microglitch events were identified in \nu and/or \dot { \nu } : 266 of these events were found to be simultaneously significant in \nu and \dot { \nu } , while 19 and 14 were noticeable only in \nu and \dot { \nu } , respectively ; ( iii ) irrespective of sign , the microglitches have fractional sizes which cover about 3 orders of magnitude in \nu and \dot { \nu } ( 10 ^ { -11 } < | \Delta { \nu } / \nu| < 2.0 \times 10 ^ { -8 } and 5.0 \times 10 ^ { -5 } < | \Delta { \dot { \nu } } / \dot { \nu } | < 2.0 \times 10 ^ { -2 } ) with median values as 0.78 \times 10 ^ { -9 } and 0.36 \times 10 ^ { -3 } , respectively .