An Improved Solar Wind Electron Density Model for Pulsar Timing

Abstract

Variations in the solar wind density introduce variable delays into pulsar timing observations. Current pulsar timing analysis programs only implement simple models of the solar wind, which not only limit the timing accuracy, but can also affect measurements of pulsar rotational, astrometric, and orbital parameters. We describe a new model of the solar wind electron density content which uses observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory of the solar magnetic field. We have implemented this model into the TEMPO2 pulsar timing package. We show that this model is more accurate than previous models and that these corrections are necessary for high-precision pulsar timing applications.