2004/01/26 by R. Ramachandran, D. C. Backer, Joanna M. Rankin +4 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/383179
published as Astrophys.J. 606 (2004) 1167-1173 · Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
arxiv created 2004/01/26 · openalex publication_date 2004/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We report here the discovery of a significant source of systematic error in the determinations of pulsar rotation measures. Conventional analysis of high-sensitivity polarimetric observations of PSR B2016+28 display variation in the rotation measure of ±15 rad m -2 (around the mean value of -34.6 rad m -2 ) across the pulse profile. Analysis of single pulse data shows that this variation is an artifact of the incoherent superposition of quasi-orthogonal polarization modes along with the frequency dependence of relative strength and/or quasi-orthogonality of the modes. Quasi-orthogonal polarization is common among pulsars, and therefore this effect needs to be taken into account in the interpretation of pulsar rotation measures.