Abstract
Pulsars’ signals reaching the atmosphere can be considered being stable under certain assumptions. In such a case the ionosphere remains the main factor distorting signal from the extraterrestrial sources, particularly if we observe them at long radio waves. In this article we present the results of the analysis of relative peak flux changes for two selected pulsars: PSR J0332+5434 (B0329+54) and PSR J1509+5531 (B1508+55), observed with the long radio wave sensor (The PL612 Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) station in Bałdy), together with the analysis of Rate of TEC (ROT) parameter changes measured with the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) sensor (IGS LAMA station (IGS: International GSSN Service)). The main objective of the work is to find if the rapid plasma density (observed with the Rate of Total Electron Content (TEC)) has a counterpart in the pulsar observation characteristics. This focuses the attention on ionosphere influence during pulsar investigations at low radio frequencies. Additionally, what was the aim of this work, our results give reasons for using pulsar signals from LOFAR together with GNSS data as multi instrumental ionosphere state probes. Our results show a clear anti-correlation between the ROT and the pulsar profile’s peak flux trends.
Highlights
Ionospheric Scintillations Observed with Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) PL612 Station
To show the importance of the results, it is worth mentioning that LOFAR stations are a very good tool for observing scintillation of radio waves from distant bright, point sources [7,8,9]
In our work we found that ionospheric fluctuations behavior described with widelyused Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)-based indices such as Rate of TEC (ROT) and Rate Of TEC Index (ROTI) have a clear counterpart in the pulsars’
Summary
Research on the propagation of radio waves in the immediate surroundings of the Earth began at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, with the appearance of the first attempts to use these waves as an information carrier. The big development of radio wave research from extraterrestrial sources began in the mid−1950s and continues to this day. The base for the great success of radio astronomy was the huge advance of radio and radar techniques, as well as the introduction of unusual observation techniques that allow for the multiplication of resolution and sensitivity capacities while maintaining the small size of the system’s individual elements. Today these techniques are commonly referred to as interferometry, including large-scale VLBI (Very Large Baseline Interferometry) techniques (see, e.g., [2])
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