Simulation of Interstellar Scattering of Pulsar Signals

Adam Jussila, Oberlin CollegeFollow

Location

King Building 237

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-27-2018 5:30 PM

End Date

4-27-2018 6:50 PM

Abstract

I spent the last year simulating the distribution of material in the interstellar medium as a combination of two components, namely a random scattering component in the form of a continuous cloud of material, and coherent sheets of material that cause an ordered deflection of photons as they traveled to us. This work builds upon a project which I worked on in previous years, which indicated that parabolic, arc-like structures in our data are much more prevalent than we expected. This implies that we might need to adjust models of the local ISM to account for these sheets of material that are believed to cause these "scintillation arcs," as we call them. My simulation attempts to tackle each of these phenomena independently and combine them in order to construct simulated spectra and understand the mechanisms at play. The hope is that the result will teach us about the actual data that we observe from pulsars.

Keywords:

pulsars, interstellar medium, simulation, astrophysics

Notes

Session VII, Panel 19 - Physical | Science
Moderator: Dan Stinebring, Francis D. Federighi Professor of Physics

Major

Physics

Advisor(s)

Matthew Rarey, Art History

Project Mentor(s)

Matthew Rarey, Art History

April 2018

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Apr 27th, 5:30 PM Apr 27th, 6:50 PM

Simulation of Interstellar Scattering of Pulsar Signals

King Building 237

I spent the last year simulating the distribution of material in the interstellar medium as a combination of two components, namely a random scattering component in the form of a continuous cloud of material, and coherent sheets of material that cause an ordered deflection of photons as they traveled to us. This work builds upon a project which I worked on in previous years, which indicated that parabolic, arc-like structures in our data are much more prevalent than we expected. This implies that we might need to adjust models of the local ISM to account for these sheets of material that are believed to cause these "scintillation arcs," as we call them. My simulation attempts to tackle each of these phenomena independently and combine them in order to construct simulated spectra and understand the mechanisms at play. The hope is that the result will teach us about the actual data that we observe from pulsars.