Tiny-scale Properties within the Interstellar Medium toward PSR J1644−4559. I. Observational Evidence of Turbulence-induced Tiny-scale Atomic Structures

Tiny-scale Properties within the Interstellar Medium toward PSR J1644−4559. I. Observational Evidence of Turbulence-induced Tiny-scale Atomic Structures

We investigated H i absorption toward a single pulsar, PSR J1644−4559, and its variability over timescales from days to years, using Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope. Our 19 epochs of spectral observations, spanning 1.2 yr with intervals as short as 1 day, provide the most comprehensive cad...

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Main Authors: Mengting Liu, Di Li, J. R. Dawson, Joel M. Weisberg, Snežana Stanimirović, George Hobbs, Simon Johnston, Lawrence Toomey, Siyao Xu, Chao-Wei Tsai, Donghui Quan, Stacy Mader, James A. Green, Lei Zhang, Ningyu Tang, Pei Wang, Kai Zhang, Pei Zuo, Gan Luo, Yi Feng, Shi Dai, Aditi Kaushik, Mengyao Xue, Chenchen Miao
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Subjects:
Interstellar atomic gas
Interstellar medium
Interstellar absorption
Pulsars
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/adbe66
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Summary:We investigated H i absorption toward a single pulsar, PSR J1644−4559, and its variability over timescales from days to years, using Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope. Our 19 epochs of spectral observations, spanning 1.2 yr with intervals as short as 1 day, provide the most comprehensive cadence coverage for monitoring H i absorption to date. We identified two significant detections of tiny-scale atomic structure (TSAS) with spatial scales ranging from a lower limit of ∼11 au to an upper limit of 165 au, both exhibiting integrated signal-to-noise ratios exceeding 5.0. We find a relationship between linear size and optical depth variation in the cold neutral medium (CNM) component hosting the TSAS, described by a power-law relationship, Δ τ _int  = Δ τ _0 (Δ L ) ^( ^α ^−2)/2 , with α  = 4.1 ± 0.4. This is the first observational evidence explicitly connecting TSAS to turbulence in CNM. This power-law index is significantly steeper than previously reported values for the CNM, where α ranges from 2.3 to 2.9, but similar to those observed in the warm ionized gas. Additionally, we observe no significant variation in α across the entire range of spatial scales traced in our study, indicating that turbulence may be cascading down and dissipating at smaller scales. While there is no precise proper-motion measurement for this pulsar, our estimates for the turbulence dissipation in the CNM place the lower and upper limits at less than 0.03 au and 0.4 au, respectively.
ISSN:0067-0049

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