Exploring the Galactic plasma with pulsars in the SKA Era
The ionised media that permeate the Milky Way have been active topics of research since the discovery of pulsars in 1967. In fact, pulsars allow one to study several aspects of said plasma, such as their column density, turbulence, scattering measures, and discrete, intervening structures in between the neutron star and the observer, and aspects of the magnetic field throughout. Such sources of information allow us to characterise the electron distribution in the terrestrial ionosphere, the Solar Wind, and our Galaxy and the impact on other experiments involving pulsars such as Pulsar Timing Arrays. In this article, we review the state-of-the-art of plasma research using pulsars, the aspects that should be taken into consideration for optimal plasma studies, and we provide future perspectives on improvements to those enabled by the SKA.
Authors
- C. Tiburzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6651-4811)
- L. Levin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2034-2986)
- Daniel J. Reardon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2035-4688)
- N. D. R. Bhat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8383-5059)
- J. R. Dawson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0235-3347)
- Michael T. Lam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0721-651X)
- G. Shaifullah (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8452-4834)
- N. K. Porayko (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6955-8040)
- M. A. Walker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5603-3982)
- Marisa Geyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2822-1919)
- W. C. Jing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1056-5895)
- M. J. Keith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5567-5492)
- S. C. Susarla (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4332-8201)
- Stella Koch Ocker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4941-5333)
- Adam T. Deller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9434-3837)
- F. Iraci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0068-4727)
- M. Mevius (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3086-8455)
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Cape Town (ZA)
- University of Cagliari (IT)
- Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway (IE)
- Lomonosov Moscow State University (RU)
- Italian Aerospace Research Centre (IT)
- Manly Hospital (AU)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
- National Astronomical Observatories (CN)
- Swinburne University of Technology (AU)
- University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
- Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (US)
- National Institute for Astrophysics (IT)
- Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
- Macquarie University (AU)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Open Journal of Astrophysics
- Published
- 2025-12-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154250
- Primary Topic
- Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00