Looking Into Pulsar Magnetospheres

Abstract

Diffractive and refractive magnetospheric scintillations may allow direct probing of theplasma inside the pulsar light cylinder. The unusual electrodynamics of the strongly magnetizedelectron-positron plasma allows separation of the magnetospheric and interstellar scattering. Themost distinctive feature of the magneto spheric scintillations is their independence of frequency.Diffractive scattering due to small scale inhomogeneities produces a scattering angle that may beas large as 0.1 radians, and a typical decorrelation time of 10^-8 seconds. Refractive scattering due tolarge scale inhomogeneities is also possible, with a typical angle of 10^-3 radians and a correlationtime of the order of 10^-4 seconds. Some of the magneto spheric propagation effects may have alreadybeen observed.