Interstellar scintillation observations for PSR J0835−4510 at 6656 MHz

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scintillation phenomena of pulsars provide an important tool for studying interstellar scattering screens and their properties. In this paper, we report pulsar scintillation phenomena of the PSR J0835−4510 at multiple epochs between MJD 58592 and MJD 58843 using the Kunming 40 m radio telescope at a centre frequency of 6656 MHz. We have measured the dynamic spectrum, and derived the scintillation time, bandwidth, and secondary spectrum at each observation epoch. For the first time, we report the detection of parabolic arc structure in the secondary spectra of PSR J0835−4510. Parabolic arcs with varying curvatures appear at all our observation epochs. We used both anisotropic and isotropic scattering screen models to fit the annual variations of arc curvature. While both models can fit the arc curvature variations equally well, the anisotropic model also explains the parabolic arc morphology and its time variation. In this model, the scattering is located at a fractional distance of s = 0.35 ± 0.10, or a distance Ds = 0.19 ± 0.03 kpc from the Earth, likely corresponding to the boundary of the Local Bubble.