Low-frequency Faraday rotation measures towards pulsars using LOFAR

Abstract

We determined Faraday rotation measures (RMs) towards 137 pulsars in the northern sky, using Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) observations at 110-190 MHz. This low-frequency RM catalogue, the largest to date, improves the precision of existing RM measurements on average by a factor of 20 - due to the low frequency and wide bandwidth of the data, aided by the RM-synthesis method. We report RMs towards 25 pulsars for the first time. The RMs were corrected for ionospheric Faraday rotation to increase the accuracy of our catalogue to ≈0.1 rad m−2. The ionospheric RM correction is currently the largest contributor to the measurement uncertainty. In addition, we find that the Faraday dispersion functions towards pulsars are extremely Faraday thin - mostly less than 0.001 rad m−2. We use these new precise RM measurements (in combination with existing RMs, dispersion measures, and distance estimates) to estimate the scale height of the Galactic halo magnetic field: 2.0 ± 0.3 kpc for Galactic quadrants I and II above and below the Galactic plane (we also evaluate the scale height for these regions individually). Overall, our initial low-frequency catalogue provides valuable information about the 3D structure of the Galactic magnetic field. Show more