Substructure of visibility functions from scattered radio emission of pulsars through space VLBI

TL;DR

This study analyzes the substructure of visibility functions in pulsar radio emissions using space VLBI, revealing insights into scattering mechanisms and the interstellar medium's structure.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to describe pulsar scattering by fitting visibility function envelopes with Lorentzians, distinguishing isotropic and anisotropic scattering effects.

Findings

Visibility functions show unresolved spikes due to scintillation noise.

Envelopes are well fit by Lorentzians, indicating scattering properties.

Correlation of spikes across baselines suggests shared diffraction spots.

Abstract

We report on the substructure of visibility functions in the delay domain of PSRs B0329+54, B0823+26, B0834+06, B1933+16 and B0833-45 (Vela) observed with earth-earth and RadioAstron space-earth two-element interferometers at frequencies of 324 MHz and 1668 MHz. All visibility functions display unresolved spikes distributed over a range of delays. They are due to band-limited scintillation noise and related to the scattering time. The envelopes for each but the Vela pulsar are well fit by a single Lorentzian which we interpret as being indicative of isotropic scattering on the plane of the sky due to a thin scattering screen between the pulsar and us. In contrast, the envelope for the Vela pulsar needs to be mostly fit by at least two Lorentzians, a narrow and a broad one at the same zero delay. We interpret this characteristic as indicative of anisotropic scattering due to more complex structure of scattering screens in the supernova remnant. The possibility of describing the delay visibility functions by Lorentzians is likely a general property of pulsars and offers a new way of describing scattering parameters of the intervening interstellar medium. Furthermore, for all our pulsars, the unresolved spikes in visibility functions of similar projected baselines were well correlated indicating that the telescopes are located in the same diffraction spot. The correlation vanished for visibilities from largely different baselines, when some radio telescopes are not in the same spot.