2016MNRAS.463.3239L

Single pulses preserve information about the pulsar radio emission and propagation in the pulsar magnetosphere, and understanding the behaviour of their variability is essential for estimating the fundamental limit on the achievable pulsar timing precision. Here we report the findings of our analysis of single pulses from PSR J1713+0747 with data collected by the Large European Array for Pulsars (LEAP). We present statistical studies of the pulse properties that include distributions of their energy, phase and width. Two modes of systematic sub-pulse drifting have been detected, with a periodicity of seven and three pulse periods. The two modes appear at different ranges of pulse longitude but overlap under the main peak of the integrated profile. No evidence for pulse micro-structure is seen with a time resolution down to 140 ns. In addition, we show that the fractional polarization of single pulses increases with their pulse peak flux density. By mapping the probability density of linear polarization position angle with pulse longitude, we reveal the existence of two orthogonal polarization modes. Finally, we find that the resulting phase jitter of integrated profiles caused by single pulse variability can be described by a Gaussian probability distribution only when at least 100 pulses are used for integration. Pulses of different flux densities and widths contribute approximately equally to the phase jitter, and no improvement on timing precision is achieved by using a sub-set of pulses with a specific range of flux density or width.