The impact on astrometry by solar-wind effect in pulsar timing

ABSTRACT Astrometry of pulsars, particularly their distances, serves as a critical input for various astrophysical experiments using pulsars. Pulsar timing is a primary approach for determining a pulsar’s position, parallax, and distance. In this paper, we explore the influence of the solar wind on astrometric measurements obtained through pulsar timing, focusing on its potential to affect the accuracy of these parameters. Using both theoretical calculation and mock-data simulations, we demonstrate a significant correlation between the pulsar position, annual parallax, and the solar-wind density parameters. This correlation strongly depends on the pulsar’s ecliptic latitude. We show that fixing solar-wind density to an arbitrary value in the timing analysis can introduce significant bias in the estimated pulsar position and parallax, and its significance is highly dependent on the ecliptic latitude of the pulsar and the timing precision of the data. For pulsars with favourable ecliptic latitude and timing precision, the astrometric and solar-wind parameters can be measured jointly with other timing parameters using single-frequency data. The parameter correlation can be mitigated by using multifrequency data, which also significantly improves the measurement precision of these parameters; this is particularly important for pulsars at a medium or high ecliptic latitude. Additionally, for a selection of pulsars we reprocess their European Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2 data to include modelling of solar-wind effect in the timing analysis. This delivers significant measurements of both parallax and solar-wind density, the latter of which are consistent with those obtained at low-frequency band. In the future, combining pulsar timing data at gigahertz and lower frequencies will probably deliver the most robust and precise measurements of astrometry and solar wind properties in pulsar timing.

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Publication Details

Journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published
2024-12-11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2727
Citations
5
Primary Topic
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.66

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article

The impact on astrometry by solar-wind effect in pulsar timing

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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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article

The impact on astrometry by solar-wind effect in pulsar timing

M. B. Mickaliger, Ismaël Cognard, A. Chalumeau, G. Theureau, C. Tiburzi, James W. McKee, A. Parthasarathy, Siyuan Chen, Aaron Golden, M. Kramer, E. F. Keane, Kuo Liu, M. J. Keith, John Antoniadis, S. C. Susarla, G. H. Janssen, Lucas Guillemot, J. Wang, J-M Grießmeier
article en
5 citations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Astrometry of pulsars, particularly their distances, serves as a critical input for various astrophysical experiments using pulsars. Pulsar timing is a primary approach for determining a pulsar’s position, parallax, and distance. In this paper, we explore the influence of the solar wind on astrometric measurements obtained through pulsar timing, focusing on its potential to affect the accuracy of these parameters. Using both theoretical calculation and mock-data simulations, we demonstrate a significant correlation between the pulsar position, annual parallax, and the solar-wind density parameters. This correlation strongly depends on the pulsar’s ecliptic latitude. We show that fixing solar-wind density to an arbitrary value in the timing analysis can introduce significant bias in the estimated pulsar position and parallax, and its significance is highly dependent on the ecliptic latitude of the pulsar and the timing precision of the data. For pulsars with favourable ecliptic latitude and timing precision, the astrometric and solar-wind parameters can be measured jointly with other timing parameters using single-frequency data. The parameter correlation can be mitigated by using multifrequency data, which also significantly improves the measurement precision of these parameters; this is particularly important for pulsars at a medium or high ecliptic latitude. Additionally, for a selection of pulsars we reprocess their European Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2 data to include modelling of solar-wind effect in the timing analysis. This delivers significant measurements of both parallax and solar-wind density, the latter of which are consistent with those obtained at low-frequency band. In the future, combining pulsar timing data at gigahertz and lower frequencies will probably deliver the most robust and precise measurements of astrometry and solar wind properties in pulsar timing.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyVol. 536(3)
Université d'Orléans (FR), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Radboud University Nijmegen (NL), Union College (US), Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway (IE), Université Paris Cité (FR), Trinity College Dublin (IE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (FR), Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (CN), University of Manchester (GB), Laboratoire Univers et Théories (FR), FORTH Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (GR), Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari (IT), Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (DE), Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace (FR), Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (GR), Ruhr University Bochum (DE), Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
European Commission, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, College of Natural Resources and Sciences, Humboldt State University, Observatoire de Paris, Université de Recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres, HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules, H2020 European Research Council
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