| 12th of December 2023 |
|---|
 |
| Parkes confirmation of an ASKAP pulsar candidate |
| by Wang et al. |
|
Wang et al.
have reported the discovery of a young, highly scattered pulsar in a
search for highly circularly polarized radio sources as part of the
Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) Variables and
Slow Transients (VAST) survey. In follow-up observations with
Murriyang, the 64m Parkes radiotelescope, they identified
PSR J1032−5804 and measured a period of 78.7 ms, a dispersion measure
(DM) of 819 pc/cm^3, and a characteristic age of 34,000 years.
A pulse scattering timescale of ∼22 ms was found at 3 GHz,
implying a timescale at 1 GHz of ∼3845 ms, which is the third most
scattered pulsar known and explains its non-detection in previous
pulsar surveys.
This result highlights
the possibility of identifying extremely scattered pulsars from radio
continuum images, which will enhance our understanding of the
characteristics of pulsars and the interstellar medium.
The image above shows normalized pulse profiles created from the summed Parkes Ultra-Wideband-Low data of PSR J1032−5804 as a function of observing frequency. Profiles in gray are shown at 3.8, 3.5, 3.1 and 2.7 GHz are vertically offset from top to bottom, along with the best-fit exponential scattering model fits in red. The timescales for the scattering fits are given -- with a longer tail to the pulses clearly seen as the frequency decreases. |