Three-Dimensional Statistics of Radio Polarimetry

Abstract

The measurement of radio polarization may be regarded as a three-dimensional statistical problem because the large photon densities at radio wavelengths allow the simultaneous detection of the three Stokes parameters which completely describe the radiation's polarization. The statistical nature of the problem arises from the fluctuating instrumental noise, and possibly from fluctuations in the radiation's polarization. A statistical model is used to derive the general, three-dimensional statistics that govern radio polarization measurements. The statistics are derived for specific cases of source-intrinsic polarization, with an emphasis on the orthogonal polarization modes in pulsar radio emission. The statistics are similar to those commonly found in other fields of the physical, biological, and Earth sciences. Given the highly variable linear and circular polarization of pulsar radio emission, an understanding of the three-dimensional statistics may be an essential prequisite to a thorough interpretation of pulsar polarization data.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJS

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Ellipticity and Deviations from Orthogonality in the Polarization Modes of PSR B0329+54
• On the Excess Dispersion in the Polarization Position Angle of Pulsar Radio Emission
• An empirical model for the polarization of pulsar radio emission
• The Statistics of Radio Astronomical Polarimetry: Bright Sources and High Time Resolution
• The Statistics of Radio Astronomical Polarimetry: Disjoint, Superposed, and Composite Samples
• New Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation from Combined Linear and Circular Optical Polarimetry of Extragalactic Sources
• Orientation Angles of a Pulsar's Polarization Vector
• Exponential Fluctuations in the Modes of Orthogonal Polarization in Pulsar Radio Emission
• Polarization Patterns in Pulsar Radio Emission