Emergence and disappearance of micro-arcsecond structure in the scintillating quasar J1819+3845

Abstract

The 4.8 GHz lightcurves of the scintillating intra-day variable quasar J1819+3845 during 2004-5 exhibit sharp structure, down to a time scale of 15 minutes, that was absent from lightcurves taken prior to this period and from the 2006 lightcurves. Analysis of the lightcurve power spectra show that the variations must be due to the emergence of new structure in the source. The power spectra yield a scattering screen distance of 3.8 +/- 0.3 pc for a best-fit v_ISS=59 +/- 0.5 km/s or 2.0 +/- 0.3 pc for the scintillation velocity reported by Dennett-Thorpe & de Bruyn (2003). The turbulence is required to be exceptionally turbulent, with C_N^2 > 0.7 Delta L_pc^{-1} m^{-20/3} for scattering material of thickness Delta L_{pc} pc along the ray path. The 2004 power spectrum can be explained in terms of a double source with a component separation 240 +/- 15 microas in 2004.

MNRAS Lett (accepted), version with high-resolution figures at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~jpm/MdB1819.pdf

References in corpus (5)

• The discovery of a microarcsecond quasar: J1819+3845
• Rapid Variability and Annual Cycles in the Characteristic Time-scale of the Scintillating Source PKS 1257-326
• Interstellar scintillation as the origin of rapid radio variability in the quasar J1819+3845
• Annual modulation in the scattering of J1819+3845: peculiar plasma velocity and anisotropy
• Diffractive Interstellar Scintillation of the Quasar J1819+3845 at 21cm

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