English

A phenomenological model for measuring generalised Faraday rotation

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2021-08-24 v1

Abstract

Generalised Faraday rotation can induce frequency-dependent conversion between the linear and circular polarisation spectra of compact radio sources such as pulsars, fast radio bursts and active galactic nuclei. I devise a simple phenomenological model that can be used to measure the effects of generalised Faraday rotation on the linearly and circularly polarised spectra of these sources. The model is theory-agnostic, with an arbitrary wavelength dependence, and hence can accommodate for a variety of potential generalised Faraday rotation inducing media. It can also be combined with additional observables to infer the physical properties of the intervening medium.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.09429,
  title  = {A phenomenological model for measuring generalised Faraday rotation},
  author = {Marcus E. Lower},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.09429},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, software implementation: https://github.com/mlower/rmnest. Comments welcome!

R2 v1 2026-06-24T05:18:03.368Z