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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
Pulsars provide probably the best probes of electron density in the plane of the Galaxy. The dispersion measure, the path integral of electron density along the line of sight from the pulsar to Earth, ∫ neds, is directly measurable from multi-frequency pulse-timing observations. The distance to a pulsar, d, can be estimated from its HI absorption and emission spectra. The mean electron density along the line of sight is then just <ne> = ∫ neds/d.