Parkes observations for project P878 semester 2014OCTS

Full description

Measuring the magnetic field and electron density of the solar wind is essential in order to understand the properties of solar corona. Detection of dispersion measure (DM) and Faraday rotation measure (RM) of linearly polarized radio sources occulted by the solar wind provides a unique opportunity to measure these properties. Pulsars are therefore ideal sources for such study, especially for millisecond pulsars which can be used to obtain high timing precision to measure the DM variations caused by the solar wind. Two millisecond pulsars, PSRs J1730-2304 and J1824-2452A with ecliptic latitude of only 0.19 and -1.55 degree are ideal for this work as the line-of-sight to these pulsars goes very close to the Sun; the closest approach is only 0.8 and 5.8 solar radii respectively. We can use these two pulsars detect the different regions of the solar coronal, such as solar equator and south pole region. We also propose a unique study of the solar corona on small physical scales using the lines-of-sight to multiple pulsars in the M28 globular cluster.