A CLEAN-based Method for Deconvolving Interstellar Pulse Broadening from Radio Pulses

Abstract

Multipath propagation in the interstellar medium distorts radio pulses, an effect predominant for distant pulsars observed at low frequencies. Typically, broadened pulses are analyzed to determine the amount of propagation-induced pulse broadening, but with little interest in determining the undistorted pulse shapes. In this paper we develop and apply a method that recovers both the intrinsic pulse shape and the pulse broadening function that describes the scattering of an impulse. The method resembles the CLEAN algorithm used in synthesis imaging applications, although we search for the best pulse broadening function, and perform a true deconvolution to recover intrinsic pulse structre. As figures of merit to optimize the deconvolution, we use the positivity and symmetry of the deconvolved result along with the mean square residual and the number of points below a given threshold. Our method makes no prior assumptions about the intrinsic pulse shape and can be used for a range of scattering functions for the interstellar medium. It can therefore be applied to a wider variety of measured pulse shapes and degrees of scattering than the previous approaches. We apply the technique to both simulated data and data from Arecibo observations.

9 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (3)

• The Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey: I. Observing and Data Analysis Systems, Discovery and Timing of 100 Pulsars
• Anomalous scattering of highly dispersed pulsars
• Scintillations and Levy flights through the interstellar medium

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• Frequency-Dependent Template Profiles for High Precision Pulsar Timing
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• The Frequency Evolution of Interstellar Pulse Broadening from Radio Pulsars
• Bright Giant Pulses from the Crab Nebula Pulsar: Statistical Properties, Pulse Broadening and Scattering due to the Nebula
• Pulse Morphology of the Galactic Center Magnetar PSR J1745-2900
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• The complex polarization angles of radio pulsars: orthogonal jumps and interstellar scattering
• The Thousand-Pulsar-Array programme on MeerKAT -- V. Scattering analysis of single-component pulsars
• Robust Estimation of Scattering in Pulsar Timing Analysis
• The Analytical Solution to the Temporal Broadening of a Gaussian-Shaped Radio Pulse by Multipath Scattering from a Thin Screen in the Interstellar Medium
• The Effect of Scattering on Pulsar Polarization Angle
• Optimal Frequency Ranges for Sub-Microsecond Precision Pulsar Timing
• Detection of Crab Giant Pulses Using the Mileura Widefield Array Low Frequency Demonstrator Field Prototype System
• The frequency dependence of scattering imprints on pulsar observations
• Observations of Crab Giant Pulses in 20-84 MHz using LWA1
• The study of multi-frequency scattering of ten radio pulsars
• Radio-wave propagation in the non-Gaussian interstellar medium
• Probing pulsar scattering between 120 and 280 MHz with the MWA
• A Pilot Study of Nulling in 22 Pulsars Using Mixture Modeling
• MWA Tied-Array Processing II: Polarimetric Verification and Analysis of two Bright Southern Pulsars
• Correcting for Interstellar Scattering Delay in High-precision Pulsar Timing: Simulation Results
• Simultaneous Observations of Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar, with the Murchison Widefield Array and Parkes Radio Telescope: Implications for the Giant Pulse Emission Mechanism
• First Results from the REAL-time Transient Acquisition backend (REALTA) at the Irish LOFAR station
• Simultaneous Observations of Giant Pulses from Pulsar PSR B0950+08 at 42 MHz and 74 MHz
• Pulsar Scintillation Studies with LOFAR: II. Dual-frequency scattering study of PSR J0826+2637 with LOFAR and NenuFAR
• Simulating high-time resolution radio-telescope observations
• Simultaneous Observations of Giant Pulses from Pulsar PSR B0031-07 at 38 MHz and 74 MHz
• Improving DM estimates using low-frequency scattering-broadening estimates
• Recovering the Pulse Profiles and Polarization Position Angles of Some Pulsars from Interstellar Scattering
• Analysis of Scattering from Archival Pulsar Data using a CLEAN-based Method
• The Stokes Phase Portraits of Descattered Pulse Profiles of a Few Pulsars
• Constraining Scattering Medium Geometry with Cyclic Spectroscopy