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arXiv · 2611.06723

Probing Solar-Wind Structure During Crab Pulsar Conjunctions with Dispersion and Faraday Rotation

Huiyu Xiao·Daniel Baker·Thierry Serafin Nadeau·Hao Shen·Dongzi Li·Ue-Li Pen
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Abstract

Observations of the Crab pulsar (PSR B0531+21) during solar conjunction probe plasma structure in the inner solar wind through radio-propagation effects. We analyze dispersion measure (DM) and rotation measure (RM) measurements from the annual conjunctions of 2022-2026, obtained with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The 2025 DM time series is distinguished from those of the other years by a secondary enhancement on 21 June, about one week after the main conjunction peak. In our scattering-corrected DM measurements, this feature, $Δ$DM $= (3.95 \pm 0.20) \times 10^{-3}$ pc cm$^{-3}$, is about 20 times the day-to-day DM scatter outside the conjunction window. The RM time series, measured by combining the single pulses of each observation and corrected for the ionospheric contribution, show conjunction excursions of up to $\sim 60$ rad m$^{-2}$ and changes of sign consistent with crossings of heliospheric magnetic-sector boundaries, but no counterpart to the secondary 2025 DM feature or to a similar post-conjunction DM tail in 2026. From the slope of the RM excess against the DM excess we estimate the electron-density-weighted line-of-sight magnetic field; for the sectors with significant slopes, $|\langle B_\parallel \rangle|$ is at least $\sim 0.2$ to $\sim 10$ mG near conjunction, largest in 2025.

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Huiyu Xiao, Daniel Baker, Thierry Serafin Nadeau, Hao Shen, Dongzi Li, Ue-Li Pen. 2026-11-04. Probing Solar-Wind Structure During Crab Pulsar Conjunctions with Dispersion and Faraday Rotation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.06723

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