| Description: | Pulsars scintillate in frequency and time, due to interference between multiple images caused by multipath propogation through the Interstellar Medium. In the last 20 years, it was discovered that the power spectra of scintillation often shows clear parabolic arcs, owing to almost linear distributions of images in the sky. I will go through the basics of the physics and geometry of pulsar scintillation, as well as a practical application of removing this effect
from timing observations. I will then describe efforts towards a more ambitious idea; once one solves for the distance and geometry of the scattering screen, the interfering scattered images can be used as an interferometer to study pulsars with ~100km precision. This method can be used to probe pulsar emission regions and to resolve a pulsar's binary motion, and I will show an early look at LOFAR data taken in the last few months towards this goal. |
