Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603-7202

Kris Walker; Daniel J. Reardon; Eric Thrane; Rory Smith

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac69c6

Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603-7202

Kris Walker, Daniel J. Reardon, Eric Thrane, Rory Smith

School of Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We model long-term variations in the scintillation of binary pulsar PSR J1603-7202, observed by the 64 m Parkes radio telescope (Murriyang) between 2004 and 2016. We find that the time variation in the scintillation arc curvature is well-modeled by scattering from an anisotropic thin screen of plasma between the Earth and the pulsar. Using our scintillation model, we measure the inclination angle and longitude of ascending node of the orbit, yielding a significant improvement over the constraints from pulsar timing. From our measurement of the inclination angle, we place a lower bound on the mass of J1603-7202's companion of ≳0.5 M ⊙ assuming a pulsar mass of ≳1.2 M ⊙. We find that the scintillation arcs are most pronounced when the electron column density along the line of sight is increased, and that arcs are present during a known extreme scattering event. We measure the distance to the interstellar plasma and its velocity, and we discuss some structures seen in individual scintillation arcs within the context of our model.

Original language	English
Article number	16
Number of pages	15
Journal	The Astrophysical Journal
Volume	933
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac69c6
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2022

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title = "Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603-7202",

abstract = "We model long-term variations in the scintillation of binary pulsar PSR J1603-7202, observed by the 64 m Parkes radio telescope (Murriyang) between 2004 and 2016. We find that the time variation in the scintillation arc curvature is well-modeled by scattering from an anisotropic thin screen of plasma between the Earth and the pulsar. Using our scintillation model, we measure the inclination angle and longitude of ascending node of the orbit, yielding a significant improvement over the constraints from pulsar timing. From our measurement of the inclination angle, we place a lower bound on the mass of J1603-7202's companion of ≳0.5 M ⊙ assuming a pulsar mass of ≳1.2 M ⊙. We find that the scintillation arcs are most pronounced when the electron column density along the line of sight is increased, and that arcs are present during a known extreme scattering event. We measure the distance to the interstellar plasma and its velocity, and we discuss some structures seen in individual scintillation arcs within the context of our model. ",

author = "Kris Walker and Reardon, {Daniel J.} and Eric Thrane and Rory Smith",

note = "Funding Information: The data used in this work were acquired as part of the PPTA project. We thank our PPTA colleagues for contributing to the observations, and George Hobbs for making our data available on the CSIRO Data Access Portal (DAP). The authors are supported through Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence CE170100004. Parkes Radio Telescope (Murriyang) is part of the Australia Telescope, which is funded by the Commonwealth Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. This research has made use of NASA{\textquoteright}s Astrophysics Data System and the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.",

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AU - Thrane, Eric

AU - Smith, Rory

N1 - Funding Information: The data used in this work were acquired as part of the PPTA project. We thank our PPTA colleagues for contributing to the observations, and George Hobbs for making our data available on the CSIRO Data Access Portal (DAP). The authors are supported through Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence CE170100004. Parkes Radio Telescope (Murriyang) is part of the Australia Telescope, which is funded by the Commonwealth Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System and the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

PY - 2022/7/1

Y1 - 2022/7/1

N2 - We model long-term variations in the scintillation of binary pulsar PSR J1603-7202, observed by the 64 m Parkes radio telescope (Murriyang) between 2004 and 2016. We find that the time variation in the scintillation arc curvature is well-modeled by scattering from an anisotropic thin screen of plasma between the Earth and the pulsar. Using our scintillation model, we measure the inclination angle and longitude of ascending node of the orbit, yielding a significant improvement over the constraints from pulsar timing. From our measurement of the inclination angle, we place a lower bound on the mass of J1603-7202's companion of ≳0.5 M ⊙ assuming a pulsar mass of ≳1.2 M ⊙. We find that the scintillation arcs are most pronounced when the electron column density along the line of sight is increased, and that arcs are present during a known extreme scattering event. We measure the distance to the interstellar plasma and its velocity, and we discuss some structures seen in individual scintillation arcs within the context of our model.

AB - We model long-term variations in the scintillation of binary pulsar PSR J1603-7202, observed by the 64 m Parkes radio telescope (Murriyang) between 2004 and 2016. We find that the time variation in the scintillation arc curvature is well-modeled by scattering from an anisotropic thin screen of plasma between the Earth and the pulsar. Using our scintillation model, we measure the inclination angle and longitude of ascending node of the orbit, yielding a significant improvement over the constraints from pulsar timing. From our measurement of the inclination angle, we place a lower bound on the mass of J1603-7202's companion of ≳0.5 M ⊙ assuming a pulsar mass of ≳1.2 M ⊙. We find that the scintillation arcs are most pronounced when the electron column density along the line of sight is increased, and that arcs are present during a known extreme scattering event. We measure the distance to the interstellar plasma and its velocity, and we discuss some structures seen in individual scintillation arcs within the context of our model.

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Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603-7202

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ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery

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Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603-7202

Abstract

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ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery

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