Context. Pulsar radio emission undergoes dispersion due to the presence of free electrons in the interstellar medium (ISM). The dispersive delay in the arrival time of the pulsar signal changes over time due to the varying ISM electron column density along the line of sight. Accurately correcting for this delay is crucial for the detection of nanohertz gravitational waves using pulsar timing arrays. Aims. We aim to demonstrate the precision in the measurement of the dispersion delay achieved by combining 400−500 MHz (BAND3) wide-band data with those at 1360−1460 MHz (BAND5) observed using the upgraded GMRT, employing two different template alignment methods. Methods. To estimate the high precision dispersion measure (DM), we measure high precision times-of-arrival (ToAs) of pulses using carefully generated templates and the currently available pulsar timing techniques. We use two different methods for aligning the templates across frequency to obtain ToAs over multiple sub-bands and therefrom measure the DMs. We study the effects of these two different methods on the measured DM values in detail. Results. We present in-band and inter-band DM estimates of four pulsars over the timescale of a year using two different template alignment methods. The DMs obtained using both these methods show only subtle differences for PSRs J1713+0747 and J1909−3744. A considerable offset is seen in the DM of PSRs J1939+2134 and J2145−0750 between the two methods. This could be due to the presence of scattering in the former and profile evolution in the latter. We find that both methods are useful but could have a systematic offset between the DMs obtained. Irrespective of the template alignment methods followed, the precision on the DMs obtained is about 10−3 pc cm−3 using only BAND3 and 10−4 pc cm−3 after combining data from BAND3 and BAND5 of the uGMRT. In a particular result, we detected a DM excess of about 5 × 10−3 pc cm−3 on 24 February 2019 for PSR J2145−0750. This excess appears to be due to the interaction region created by fast solar wind from a coronal hole and a coronal mass ejection observed from the Sun on that epoch. A detailed analysis of this interesting event is presented.

High-precision measurements of the pulsar dispersion measure (DM) are possible using telescopes with low-frequency wideband receivers. We present an initial study of the application of the wideband timing technique, which can simultaneously measure the pulsar times of arrival (ToAs) and DMs, for a set of five pulsars observed with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) as part of the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) campaign. We have used the observations with the 300 – 500 MHz band of the uGMRT for this purpose. We obtain high precision in DM measurements with precisions of the order 10−6 cm−3 pc. The ToAs obtained have sub-μs precision and the root-mean-square of the post-fit ToA residuals are in the sub-μs range. We find that the uncertainties in the DMs and ToAs obtained with this wideband technique, applied to low-frequency data, are consistent with the results obtained with traditional pulsar timing techniques and comparable to high-frequency results from other PTAs. This work opens up an interesting possibility of using low-frequency wideband observations for precision pulsar timing and gravitational wave detection with similar precision as high-frequency observations used conventionally.

PSR J1713+0747 is one of the most precisely timed pulsars in the international pulsar timing array experiment. This pulsar showed an abrupt profile shape change between April 16, 2021 (MJD 59320) and April 17, 2021 (MJD 59321). In this paper, we report the results from multi-frequency observations of this pulsar carried out with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) before and after the event. We demonstrate the profile change seen in Band 5 (1260 MHz – 1460 MHz) and Band 3 (300 MHz – 500 MHz). The timing analysis of this pulsar shows a disturbance accompanying this profile change followed by a recovery with a timescale of ∼159 days. Our data suggest that a model with chromatic index as a free parameter is preferred over models with combinations of achromaticity with DM bump or scattering bump. We determine the frequency dependence to be ∼ν+1.34.

We present the pulse arrival times and high-precision dispersion measure estimates for 14 millisecond pulsars observed simultaneously in the 300 $-$ 500 MHz and 1260 $-$ 1460 MHz frequency bands using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. The data spans over a baseline of 3.5 years (2018-2021), and is the first official data release made available by the Indian Pulsar Timing Array collaboration. This data release presents a unique opportunity for investigating the interstellar medium effects at low radio frequencies and their impact on the timing precision of pulsar timing array experiments. In addition to the dispersion measure time series and pulse arrival times obtained using both narrowband and wideband timing techniques, we also present the dispersion measure structure function analysis for selected pulsars. Our ongoing investigations regarding the frequency dependence of dispersion measures have been discussed. Based on the preliminary analysis for five millisecond pulsars, we do not find any conclusive evidence of chromaticity in dispersion measures. Data from regular simultaneous two-frequency observations are presented for the first time in this work. This distinctive feature leads us to the highest precision dispersion measure estimates obtained so far for a subset of our sample. Simultaneous multi-band upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope observations in 300 $-$ 500 MHz and 1260 $-$ 1460 MHz are crucial for high-precision dispersion measure estimation and for the prospect of expanding the overall frequency coverage upon the combination of data from the various Pulsar Timing Array consortia in the near future. Parts of the data presented in this work are expected to be incorporated into the upcoming third data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array.

We introduce pinta, a pipeline for reducing the upgraded Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) raw pulsar timing data, developed for the Indian Pulsar Timing Array experiment. We provide a detailed description of the workflow and usage of pinta, as well as its computational performance and RFI mitigation characteristics. We also discuss a novel and independent determination of the relative time offsets between the different back-end modes of uGMRT and the interpretation of the uGMRT observation frequency settings and their agreement with results obtained from engineering tests. Further, we demonstrate the capability of pinta to generate data products which can produce high-precision TOAs using PSR J1909 $-$ 3744 as an example. These results are crucial for performing precision pulsar timing with the uGMRT.