Ultra-High Resolution Intensity Statistics of a Scintillating Source

Abstract

We derive the distribution of flux density of a compact source exhibiting strong diffractive scintillation. Our treatment accounts for arbitrary spectral averaging, spatially-extended source emission, and the possibility of intrinsic variability within the averaging time, as is typical for pulsars. We also derive the modulation index and present a technique for estimating the self-noise of the distribution, which can be used to identify amplitude variations on timescales shorter than the spectral accumulation time. Our results enable a for direct comparison with ultra-high resolution observations of pulsars, particularly single-pulse studies with Nyquist-limited resolution, and can be used to identify the spatial emission structure of individual pulses at a small fraction of the diffractive scale.

14 Pages, 4 Figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (10)

• High-resolution single-pulse studies of the Vela Pulsar
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• Intrinsic Variability of the Vela Pulsar: Lognormal Statistics and Theoretical Implications
• Scintillations and Levy flights through the interstellar medium
• Size of the Vela Pulsar's Emission Region at 13 cm Wavelength
• Effects of Intermittent Emission: Noise Inventory for Scintillating Pulsar B0834+06
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• Size of the Vela Pulsar's Emission Region at 18 cm Wavelength
• Noise in the Cross-Power Spectrum of the Vela Pulsar
• Scintillation of PSR B1508+55 -- the view from a 10,000-km baseline
• Interferometric Visibility of a Scintillating Source: Statistics at the Nyquist Limit
• A direct measurement of the electron density turbulence parameter $C_1$ and implications for the emission size of the magnetar XTE J1810-197