Orbital Dynamics and Extreme Scattering Event Properties from Long-term Scintillation Observations of PSR J1603−7202

Abstract

We model long-term variations in the scintillation of binary pulsar PSR J1603−7202, observed by the 64 m Parkes radio telescope (Murriyang) between 2004 and 2016. We find that the time variation in the scintillation arc curvature is well-modeled by scattering from an anisotropic thin screen of plasma between the Earth and the pulsar. Using our scintillation model, we measure the inclination angle and longitude of ascending node of the orbit, yielding a significant improvement over the constraints from pulsar timing. From our measurement of the inclination angle, we place a lower bound on the mass of J1603−7202's companion of ≳0.5 M ⊙ assuming a pulsar mass of ≳1.2 M ⊙. We find that the scintillation arcs are most pronounced when the electron column density along the line of sight is increased, and that arcs are present during a known extreme scattering event. We measure the distance to the interstellar plasma and its velocity, and we discuss some structures seen in individual scintillation arcs within the context of our model.