Nicholas Nelson and Nathan Theis, “The Correlation Between Hydrogen Column Density and Dispersion Measure Using Pulsars”
Mentor: David Kaplan, Physics, Letters & Science (College of)
Poster #132
Pulsars emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their poles across the electromagnetic spectrum. By analyzing pulsar radio wave and x-ray emissions we can determine a correlation between the Dispersion Measure (DM) and the Hydrogen Column Density (N_\mathrm{H}). This correlation allows us to better understand physical connections between different phases of the Interstellar Medium. We collect spectral analysis of 88 pulsars to find a best fit linear relationship of N_\mathrm{H} N_\mathrm{H}\ \left({10}^{20}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}\right)=0.28\pm0.05\ \mathrm{DM} \ \mathrm{c\ }{\mathrm{cm}}^-3. This builds upon the work conducted by He et al. (2013) by increasing the number of pulsars sampled and updating the DM-N_\mathrm{H} correlation with more current spectral analysis.