High precision measurements of interstellar dispersion measure with the upgraded GMRT

Journal article

Pulsar radio emission undergoes dispersion due to the presence of free electrons in the interstellar medium (ISM). The dispersive delay in the arrival time of pulsar signal changes over time due to the varying ISM electron column density along the line of sight. Correcting for this delay accurately is crucial for the detection of nanohertz gravitational waves using Pulsar Timing Arrays. In this work, we present in-band and inter-band DM estimates of four pulsars observed with uGMRT over the timescale of a year using two different template alignment methods. The DMs obtained using both these methods show only subtle differences for PSR 1713+0747 and J1909$-$3744. A considerable offset is seen in the DM of PSR J1939+2134 and J2145$-$0750 between the two methods. This could be due to the presence of scattering in the former and profile evolution in the latter. We find that both methods are useful but could have a systematic offset between the DMs obtained. Irrespective of the template alignment methods followed, the precision on the DMs obtained is about $10^{-3}$ pc cm$^{-3}$ using only BAND3 and $10^{-4}$ pc cm$^{-3}$ after combining data from BAND3 and BAND5 of the uGMRT. In a particular result, we have detected a DM excess of about $5\times10^{-3}$ pc cm$^{-3}$ on 24 February 2019 for PSR J2145$-$0750. This excess appears to be due to the interaction region created by fast solar wind from a coronal hole and a coronal mass ejection (CME) observed from the Sun on that epoch. A detailed analysis of this interesting event is presented.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Accepted by A&

Authors: Krishnakumar, MA; Manoharan, PK; Joshi, BC; Girgaonkar, R; Desai, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: EDP Sciences
• Journal: Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Volume: 651
• Pages: A5-A5
• Publication date: 2021-06-02
• Acceptance date: 2021-05-26
• DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202140340
• EISSN: 1432-0746
• ISSN: 0004-6361
• Language: English
• Keywords: Pulsar; Measure (data warehouse); Dispersion (optics); Gravitational wave; Interstellar medium; Offset (computer science); Millisecond pulsar