Refractive and Diffractive Scintillation of the Pulsar PSR~B0329+54
Session 78 -- Pulsars and Neutron Stars
Display presentation, Wednesday, 11, 1995, 9:20am - 6:30pm

## [78.09] Refractive and Diffractive Scintillation of the Pulsar PSR~B0329+54

D. R.~Stinebring (Oberlin College), M. D.~Faison (U.~Wisconsin), M.~M.~McKinnon (NRAO)

Refractive and diffractive scintillation are thought to be two related consequences of scattering in the interstellar medium. The predicted modulation of diffractive scintillation parameters by refractive effects has not been thoroughly tested, however. We report 24 days of scintillation observations of the radio pulsar PSR B0329+54 from September 1993 to June 1994 with a 26-m telescope operating at 610~MHz. Dynamic spectra were obtained on each day, from which the characteristic bandwidth and time scale of the diffractive scintillation pattern were determined. A relative flux value for the pulsar was also obtained on each day. The cross-covariance coefficient for each unique pair of the observables --- flux, $\delta F$, bandwidth, $\delta \nu$ and time scale, $\delta t$ --- was formed from these data. The observed values of these coefficients and their 67\% confidence-interval errors are: $C_{\delta F \delta \nu} \approx -0.4 \pm 0.2$, $C_{\delta F \delta t} \approx -0.7 \pm 0.1$, and $C_{\delta \nu \delta t} \approx 0.5 \pm 0.2$. Theoretical expectations are that $C_{\delta F \delta \nu} \approx -0.8$, $C_{\delta F \delta t} \approx -0.6$, and $C_{\delta \nu \delta t} \approx 0.8$. We conclude that we have detected the expected modulation of diffractive parameters by refractive scintillation. This adds confidence to the interpretation that diffractive and refractive scintillation of compact radio sources are caused by the same underlying scattering process.