We present a timing and glitch analysis of the young X-ray pulsar PSR J0537 - 6910 , located within the Large Magellanic Cloud , using 13 years of data from the now decommissioned Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer .
Rotating with a spin period of 16 ms , PSR J0537 - 6910 is the fastest spinning and most energetic young pulsar known .
It also displays the highest glitch activity of any known pulsar .
We have found 42 glitches over the data span , corresponding to a glitch rate of 3.2 yr ^ { -1 } , with an overall glitch activity rate of 8.8 \times 10 ^ { -7 } yr ^ { -1 } .
The high glitch frequency has allowed us to study the glitch behavior in ways that are inaccessible in other pulsars .
We observe a strong linear correlation between spin frequency glitch magnitude and wait time to the following glitch .
We also find that the post-glitch spin-down recovery is well described by a single two-component model fit to all glitches for which we have adequate input data .
This consists of an exponential amplitude A = ( 7.6 \pm 1.0 ) \times 10 ^ { -14 } s ^ { -2 } and decay timescale \tau = 27 _ { -6 } ^ { +7 } d , and linear slope m = ( 4.1 \pm 0.4 ) \times 10 ^ { -16 } s ^ { -2 } d ^ { -1 } .
The latter slope corresponds to a second frequency derivative \ddot { \nu } = ( 4.7 \pm 0.5 ) \times 10 ^ { -22 } s ^ { -3 } , from which we find an implied braking index n = 7.4 \pm 0.8 .
We also present a maximum-likelihood technique for searching for periods in event-time data , which we used to both confirm previously published values and determine rotation frequencies in later observations .
We discuss the implied constraints on glitch models from the observed behavior of this system , which we argue can not be fully explained in the context of existing theories .