Pulsar scintillation studies with LOFAR. I. The census

Abstract

Context. Interstellar scintillation (ISS) of pulsar emission can be used both as a probe of the ionised interstellar medium (IISM) and cause corruptions in pulsar timing experiments. Of particular interest are so-called scintillation arcs which can be used to measure time-variable interstellar scattering delays directly, potentially allowing high-precision improvements to timing precision. Aims. The primary aim of this study is to carry out the first sizeable and self-consistent census of diffractive pulsar scintillation and scintillation-arc detectability at low frequencies, as a primer for larger-scale IISM studies and pulsar-timing related propagation studies with the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) High Band Antennae (HBA). Results. In this initial set of 31 sources, 15 allow full determination of the scintillation properties; nine of these show detectable scintillation arcs at 120-180 MHz. Eight of the observed sources show unresolved scintillation; and the final eight don't display diffractive scintillation. Some correlation between scintillation detectability and pulsar brightness and dispersion measure is apparent, although no clear cut-off values can be determined. Our measurements across a large fractional bandwidth allow a meaningful test of the frequency scaling of scintillation parameters, uncorrupted by influences from refractive scintillation variations. Conclusions. Our results indicate the powerful advantage and great potential of ISS studies at low frequencies and the complex dependence of scintillation detectability on parameters like pulsar brightness and interstellar dispersion. This work provides the first installment of a larger-scale census and longer-term monitoring of interstellar scintillation effects at low frequencies.

16 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (22)

• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• PSRCHIVE and PSRFITS An Open Approach to Radio Pulsar Data Storage and Analysis
• The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS): Survey overview and initial pulsar discoveries
• The NANOGrav Nine-Year Data Set: Excess Noise in Millisecond Pulsar Arrival Times
• Scattering analysis of LOFAR pulsar observations
• Precision orbital dynamics from interstellar scintillation arcs for PSR J0437-4715
• Scatter broadening of pulsars and implications on the interstellar medium turbulence
• Modelling annual and orbital variations in the scintillation of the relativistic binary PSR J1141$-$6545
• Interstellar Scintillation of the Double Pulsar J0737$-$3039
• First detection of frequency-dependent, time-variable dispersion measures
• Dispersion measure variability for 36 millisecond pulsars at 150MHz with LOFAR
• Measuring Interstellar Delays of PSR J0613-0200 over 7 years, using the Large European Array for Pulsars
• Multi-frequency scatter broadening evolution of pulsars - I
• Dual-frequency single-pulse study of PSR B0950+08
• Daily Observations of Interstellar Scintillation in PSR B0329+54
• Pulsars with NenuFAR: backend and pipelines
• Scattering study of Pulsars below 100 MHz using LWA1
• Discovery and modelling of broad-scale plasma lensing in black-widow pulsar J2051$-$0827
• A Census of Southern Pulsars at 185 MHz
• Multi-frequency scatter broadening evolution of pulsars - II. Scatter broadening of nearby pulsars
• Resolving the bow-shock nebula around the old pulsar PSR B1929+10 with multi-epoch Chandra observations
• Discovery of a Pulsar Wind Nebula around B0950+08 with the ELWA

Cited by in corpus (16)

• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT -- X. Scintillation arcs of 107 pulsars
• Status Report on Global Pulsar-Timing-Array Efforts to Detect Gravitational Waves
• Variable Scintillation Arcs of Millisecond Pulsars observed with the Large European Array for Pulsars
• Scintillation Arc from FRB 20220912A
• Radio Variable and Transient Sources on Minute Timescales in the ASKAP Pilot Surveys
• Galactic Interstellar Scintillation Observed from Four Globular Cluster Pulsars by FAST
• Pulsar Scintillation Studies with LOFAR: II. Dual-frequency scattering study of PSR J0826+2637 with LOFAR and NenuFAR
• Simulating FRB Morphologies and Coherent Phase Correlation Signatures from Multi-Plane Astrophysical Lensing
• H-FISTA: A hierarchical algorithm for phase retrieval with application to pulsar dynamic spectra
• The Galactic distribution of pulsar scattering and the $\tau -\mathrm{DM}$ relation
• A Simultaneous Dual-Frequency Scintillation Arc Survey of Six Bright Canonical Pulsars Using the Upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
• A direct measurement of the electron density turbulence parameter $C_1$ and implications for the emission size of the magnetar XTE J1810-197
• Scintillometry of Fast Radio Bursts: Resolution effects in two-screen models
• Scintillation Bandwidth Measurements from 23 Pulsars from the AO327 Survey
• Pulsars identified in the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey at 144 MHz
• Pulsar scintillation studies with LOFAR III. Annual variations in PSR~J0814$+$7429