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C. T. Asplund, D. E. Berwick, D. R. Stinebring (Oberlin), M. A. Walker (Sydney University)
Recent scintillation observations of pulsars have revealed surprising features of the ionized ISM. Scattering of radio waves from pulsars by density inhomogeneities in the interstellar medium causes an interference pattern at the Earth. High sensitivity single-dish observations of this pattern contain a wealth of information about the ISM on AU-size scales. Furthermore, we have shown recently that discrete features can be tracked for more than 30 days as the pulsar scans past them.
We report on an effort to obtain an image of the scattered signal with milliarcesecond resolution. The time development of the interference pattern can be used to resolve image ambiguities since the scattering material is seen from different perspectives. We will present preliminary results for an imaging event of the pulsar PSR~B0834+06 obtained in 2004~January.
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (PI: DRS) and is based on observations obtained with the Arecibo Observatory, operated by Cornell University under cooperative agreement with the NSF.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.