Related papers: A new way of detecting intergalactic baryons
The propagation length of high-energy photons through the Universe is limited by $e^+e^-$ pair production on the extragalactic background radiation. Previous studies reported discrepancies between predicted and observed attenuation,…
During reionization, a fraction of galactic Ly$\alpha$ emission is scattered in the intergalactic medium (IGM) and appears as a diffuse light extending megaparsecs from the source. We investigate how to probe the properties of the early…
The pulse widths, dispersion measures and dispersion indices of Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) impose coupled constraints that all models must satisfy. We show that if the dispersion measures resulted from propagation through the intergalactic…
The dispersion measure of extragalactic radio transients, such as of recently discovered Fast Radio Burst FRB150418, can be used to measure the column density of free electrons in the intergalactic medium. The same electrons also scatter…
Observations at long wavelengths, in the wide interval from a few to 1000 micron, are essential to study diffuse media in galaxies, including all kinds of atomic, ionic and molecular gases and dust grains. Hence they are particularly suited…
In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first in situ probe of the very local interstellar medium. The Voyager 1 Plasma Wave System has given point estimates of the plasma density spanning about 30 astronomical units (au) of interstellar space,…
More than three quarters of the baryonic content of the Universe resides in a highly diffuse state that is difficult to observe, with only a small fraction directly observed in galaxies and galaxy clusters. Censuses of the nearby Universe…
We study gravitational lensing when plasma surrounds the lens. An extra deflection angle is induced by the plasma in addition to the deflection generated by gravity. An inhomogeneous plasma distribution generates a greater effect than a…
The dispersion measure of fast radio bursts (FRBs), arising from the interactions of the pulses with free electrons along the propagation path, constitutes a unique probe of the cosmic baryon distribution. Their constraining power is…
In 1997 October daily monitoring observations of the Crab pulsar at 327 MHz and 610 MHz with an 85ft telescope in Green Bank, WV showed a jump in the dispersion measure by 0.1 cm$^{-3}$ pc. Pulses were seen simultaneously at both old and…
Sub-picosecond coincidence timing from nonlocal intensity interference of entangled photons allows quantum interferometry for plasmas. Using a warm plasma dispersion relation, we correlate phase measurement sensitivity with different plasma…
One of the most sought-after signatures of reionization is a rapid increase in the ionizing background (usually measured through the Lyman-alpha optical depth toward distant quasars). Conventional wisdom associates this with the "overlap"…
Interstellar scattering is known to broaden distant objects spatially and temporally. The latter aspect is difficult to analyse, unless the signals carry their own time stamps. Pulsars are so kind to do us this favour. Typically the…
The accretion of the intergalactic medium onto the gaseous disc is used to explain the generation of galactic warps. A cup-shaped distortion is expected, due to the transmission of the linear momentum; but, this effect is small for most…
Recently, there have been reports of six bright, dispersed bursts of coherent radio emission found in pulsar surveys with the Parkes Multi-beam Receiver. Not much is known about the progenitors of these bursts, but they are…
We have made observations of 98 low-Galactic-latitude pulsars to measure pulse broadening caused by multipath propagation through the interstellar medium. Data were collected with the 305-m Arecibo telescope at four radio frequencies…
It was recently suggested by Boldyrev & Gwinn that the characteristics of radio scintillations from distant pulsars are best understood if the interstellar electron-density fluctuations that cause the time broadening of the radio pulses…
Radio wave propagation can be perturbed by compact ionized gas clumps through plasma lensing, which induces frequency dependent magnification and may distort the observed number counts of background sources. The quasar (QSO) number…
A nonzero-mass hypothesis for the photon can produces a frequency-dependent dispersion of light, which results in arrival-time differences of photons with different frequencies originating from a given transient source. Extragalactic fast…
Variable continuum emission from AGN can be used to probe the structure of their accretion disks via reverberation mapping. Assuming a variable, hot inner light source irradiates the surrounding accretion disk, time delays between different…