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Interstellar scintillations of PSR B1919+21: space–ground interferometry

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We carried out observations of pulsar PSR B1919+21 at 324 MHz to study the distribution of interstellar plasma in the direction of this pulsar. We used the RadioAstron (RA) space… Click to show full abstract

We carried out observations of pulsar PSR B1919+21 at 324 MHz to study the distribution of interstellar plasma in the direction of this pulsar. We used the RadioAstron (RA) space radiotelescope together with two ground telescopes: Westerbork (WB) and Green Bank (GB). The maximum baseline projection for the space-ground interferometer was about 60000 km. We show that interstellar scintillation of this pulsar consists of two components: diffractive scintillations from inhomogeneities in a layer of turbulent plasma at a distance $z_{1} = 440$ pc from the observer or homogeneously distributed scattering material to pulsar; and weak scintillations from a screen located near the observer at $z_{2} = 0.14 \pm 0.05$ pc. Furthermore, in the direction to the pulsar we detected a prism that deflects radiation, leading to a shift of observed source position. We show that the influence of the ionosphere can be ignored for the space-ground baseline. Analysis of the spatial coherence function for the space-ground baseline (RA-GB) yielded the scattering angle in the observer plane: $\theta_{scat}$ = 0.7 mas. An analysis of the time-frequency correlation function for weak scintillations yielded the angle of refraction in the direction to the pulsar: $\theta_{ref, 0}$ = 110 ms and the distance to the prism $z_{prism} \le 2$ pc.

Keywords: ground; space; space ground; psr b1919; direction pulsar

Journal Title: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Year Published: 2017

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