Linear Polarization Properties of Pulsars at 35 & 327 MHz

Extract

Faraday Rotation of the plane of polarization of broad-band signals, during propagation through the intervening medium, manifests as quasi-sinusoidal spectral modulations when observed with a telescope sensitive to a single linear polarization. Such a modulation can be exploited to study linear polarization characteristics of pulsars (Suleimanova, Volodin, & Shitov, 1988; Smirnova & Boriakoff 1997, Ramkumar & Deshpande 1999 (RD99)). We have used our data on a few bright pulsars at 35 MHz (Asgekar & Deshpande 1999, elsewhere in this volume) and data obtained at 327 MHz using Ooty Radio Telescope (see RD99 for details), to study average linear polarization properties using this technique. The data obtained over 256 frequency channels were re-sampled in the spectral domain to make the Faraday modulation appear periodic, and then a simple Fourier analysis was performed to look for (ACF) features associated with the possible spectral modulation (see RD99 for the analysis details).