New pulsar rotation measures and the Galactic magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper presents new and revised pulsar Rotation Measures using a novel fitting method, enhancing the understanding of the Galactic magnetic field by combining these data with existing models and measurements.

Contribution

Introduces a novel quadratic fitting algorithm for accurate RM measurement and provides new RM data for 46 pulsars, revising 104 previous values.

Findings

New RM measurements for 46 pulsars.

Revised RMs for 104 pulsars.

Improved models of the Galactic magnetic field.

Abstract

We measured a sample of 150 pulsar Rotation Measures (RMs) using the 20-cm receiver of the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. 46 of the pulsars in our sample have not had their RM values previously published, whereas 104 pulsar RMs have been revised. We used a novel quadratic fitting algorithm to obtain an accurate RM from the calibrated polarisation profiles recorded across 256 MHz of receiver bandwidth. The new data are used in conjunction with previously known Dispersion Measures (DMs) and the NE2001 electron-density model to study models of the direction and magnitude of the Galactic magnetic field.