The Galactic distribution of pulsar scattering and the τ–DM relation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Interstellar radio wave scattering leads to flux density fluctuations and pulse broadening of pulsar signals. However, Galactic distribution and the structure of the scattering medium are still poorly understood. Pulsar pulse broadening data available for a relatively large number of pulsars is well suited for such investigations. We collected an up-to-date sample of publicly available pulsar scattering data and introduced a new quantity – the reduced scattering strength $\tilde{\tau }$ to study the Galactic distribution of pulsar scattering in the Milky Way. We show that the current observations are dominated by two distinct pulsar populations: a local and an inner-Galactic one separated by $\tilde{\tau }=10^{-5.1}$ s cm6 pc−1. The stronger electron density fluctuations associated with the inner-Galactic population naturally explain the observed steepening of pulsar scattering time τ–dispersion measure relation. We measure an inner disc region with $3\, {\rm kpc}\ \lt\ \rm r\ \lt\ 5.5\, {\rm kpc}$ from the Galactic centre to have a scattering scale height of about 0.28 kpc, supporting a correlation between interstellar radio scattering and structures associating with the ionized gas and stellar activities.