Probing magneto-ionic microstructure towards the Vela pulsar using a prototype SKA-Low station

TL;DR

This study uses a prototype SKA-Low station to monitor the Vela pulsar, revealing long-term magneto-ionic microstructure changes in the interstellar medium through high-precision polarimetric observations.

Contribution

First high-cadence, multi-year RM and DM measurements of Vela pulsar with a SKA-Low prototype, demonstrating capabilities for microstructure probing and long-term magneto-ionic studies.

Findings

Detected a DM change of ~0.3 cm^-3 pc over two decades.

Observed magnetic field strength variation from ~240 μG to -6.2 μG.

No significant RM trends on months timescale.

Abstract

The Vela pulsar (J0835-4510) is known to exhibit variations in Faraday rotation and dispersion on multi-decade timescales due to the changing sightline through the surrounding Vela supernova remnant and the Gum Nebula. Until now, variations in Faraday rotation towards Vela have not been studied on timescales less than around a decade. We present the results of a high-cadence observing campaign carried out with the Aperture Array Verification System 2 (AAVS2), a prototype SKA-Low station, which received a significant bandwidth upgrade in 2022. We collected observations of the Vela pulsar and PSR J0630-2834 (a nearby pulsar located outside the Gum Nebula), spanning $\sim 1\,\mathrm{yr}$ and $\sim 0.3\,\mathrm{yr}$ respectively, and searched for linear trends in the rotation measure (RM) as a function of time. We do not detect any significant trends on this timescale ($\sim$months) for either pulsar, but the constraints could be greatly improved with more accurate ionospheric models. For the Vela pulsar, the combination of our data and historical data from the published literature have enabled us to model long-term correlated trends in RM and dispersion measure (DM) over the past two decades. We detect a change in DM of $\sim 0.3\,\mathrm{cm}^{-3}\,\mathrm{pc}$ which corresponds to a change in electron density of $\sim 10^5\,\mathrm{cm}^{-3}$ on a transverse length scale of $\sim$1-2 au. The apparent magnetic field strength in the time-varying region changes from $240^{+30}_{-20}\,\mu\mathrm{G}$ to $-6.2^{+0.7}_{-0.9}\,\mu\mathrm{G}$ over the time span of the data set. As well as providing an important validation of polarimetry, this work highlights the pulsar monitoring capabilities of SKA-Low stations, and the niche science opportunities they offer for high-precision polarimetry and probing the microstructure of the magneto-ionic interstellar medium.