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Size of the Vela Pulsar's Emission Region at 13 Centimeter Wavelength
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-16, 12:32 authored by Gwinn, CR, Britton, MC, Reynolds, JE, Jauncey, DL, King, EA, Peter McCullochPeter McCulloch, James LovellJames Lovell, Flanagan, CS, Preston, RAWe present measurements of the size of the Vela pulsar in three gates across the pulse, from observations of the distribution of intensity. We calculate the effects on this distribution of noise in the observing system, and measure and remove it using observations of a strong continuum source. We also calculate and remove the expected effects of averaging in time and frequency. We find that effects of variations in pulsar flux density and instrumental gain, self-noise, and 1 bit digitization are undetectably small. Effects of normalization of the correlation are detectable, but do not affect the fitted size. The size of the pulsar declines from 440 ± 90 km (FWHM of best-fitting Gaussian distribution) to less than 200 km across the pulse. We discuss implications of this size for theories of pulsar emission.
History
Publication title
The Astrophysical JournalVolume
531Pagination
902-916ISSN
0004-637XDepartment/School
School of Natural SciencesPublisher
University of Chicago PressPlace of publication
ChicagoRepository Status
- Restricted