- evn2024@mpifr.de
Support
Contribution
Speakers
- Ms. Ashley STOCK
Primary authors
- Ms. Ashley STOCK (David A Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics)
Content
Pulsars are routinely observed to vary in brightness on timescales of a few minutes due to variations in electron density in the interstellar medium (ISM) on angular scales of several microarcseconds--a process known as scintillation. The only way to unambiguously measure the geometric properties of the ISM structures causing scintillation is with VLBI. However, few VLBI scintillation studies have been conducted to date. I will present work on the scintillation of PSR B1133+16 as seen by the EVN. This pulsar probes a particularly interesting line of sight of the ISM as at least five distinct structures significantly contribute to the scintillation of this pulsar, with three of the structures previously shown to overlap in distance. Measuring these structures in detail may give insight into the ISM environments that are highly favourable to scintillation. Additionally, scintillation has impacts on pulsar astrometry and timing array science from the scatter broadening of pulses. These impacts can be mitigated through careful characterizing of the ISM structure.