GBT26B-265

A Scintillation Arc Survey of Seven Scattered Pulsars Using Cyclic Spectroscopy

Abstract

Pulsar scintillation arcs are among the best tools we have for probing the structure of the ionized interstellar medium at AU and sub-AU scales. Recovery of these arcs has the prerequisite of first resolving scintillation structures in pulsar dynamic spectra, which track pulsar intensity over observing frequency and time, before Fourier transforming to a regime where scintillation arcs are visible. Due to this resolution restriction, the lines of sight towards the most highly scattered pulsars, which are often the most dynamic and scientifically interesting, have been quite limited. However, techniques like cyclic spectroscopy, which can allow for increases in frequency resolution up to the pulsar spin frequency, can allow for such studies to be performed by circumventing the channelization limitations put in place on most telescope backends. We therefore propose to use the new GBT cyclic spectroscopy backend to perform a pilot scintillation arc survey towards seven highly scattered pulsars with no measured scintillation arcs in the literature, with plans for studies on individual sources with particularly interesting lines of sight, i.e., those that exhibit more than just pure anisotropic scattering.

Investigators

Name	Institution
Jacob Turner *	Green Bank Observatory; West Virginia University
Ryan Lynch	Green Bank Observatory

* indicates the PI