Tiny-Scale Properties within the Interstellar Medium towards PSR J1644$-$4559: I. Observational Evidence of Turbulence-induced Tiny Scale Atomic Structures

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Main Authors: Liu, Mengting, Li, Di, Dawson, J. R., Weisberg, Joel M., Stanimirović, Snežana, Hobbs, George, Johnston, Simon, Toomey, Lawrence, Xu, Siyao, Tsai, Chao-Wei, Quan, Donghui, Mader, Stacy, Green, James A., Zhang, Lei, Tang, Ningyu, Wang, Pei, Zhang, Kai, Zuo, Pei, Luo, Gan, Feng, Yi, Dai, Shi, Kaushik, Aditi, Xue, Mengyao, Miao, Chenchen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Liu, Mengting
Li, Di
Dawson, J. R.
Weisberg, Joel M.
Stanimirović, Snežana
Hobbs, George
Johnston, Simon
Toomey, Lawrence
Xu, Siyao
Tsai, Chao-Wei
Quan, Donghui
Mader, Stacy
Green, James A.
Zhang, Lei
Tang, Ningyu
Wang, Pei
Zhang, Kai
Zuo, Pei
Luo, Gan
Feng, Yi
Dai, Shi
Kaushik, Aditi
Xue, Mengyao
Miao, Chenchen
author_facet Liu, Mengting
Li, Di
Dawson, J. R.
Weisberg, Joel M.
Stanimirović, Snežana
Hobbs, George
Johnston, Simon
Toomey, Lawrence
Xu, Siyao
Tsai, Chao-Wei
Quan, Donghui
Mader, Stacy
Green, James A.
Zhang, Lei
Tang, Ningyu
Wang, Pei
Zhang, Kai
Zuo, Pei
Luo, Gan
Feng, Yi
Dai, Shi
Kaushik, Aditi
Xue, Mengyao
Miao, Chenchen
contents We investigated HI absorption toward a single pulsar, PSR J1644$-$4559, and its variability over timescales from days to years, using Murriyang, CSIRO's Parkes Radio Telescope. Our 19 epochs of spectral observations, spanning 1.2 years with intervals as short as 1 day, provide the most comprehensive cadence coverage for monitoring HI absorption to date. We identified two significant detections of tiny-scale atomic structure (TSAS) with spatial scales ranging from a lower limit of $\sim$11 au to an upper limit of 165 au, both exhibiting integrated signal-to-noise ratios exceeding 5.0. We find a relationship between linear size and optical depth variation in the cold neutral medium (CNM) component hosting the TSAS, described by a power-law relationship, $Δτ_{\rm int} = Δτ_0 (ΔL)^{(α-2)/2}$, with $α= 4.1 \pm 0.4$. This is the first observational evidence explicitly connecting TSAS to turbulence in CNM. This power-law index is significantly steeper than previously reported values for the CNM, where $α$ ranges from 2.3 to 2.9, but similar to those observed in the warm ionized gas. Additionally, we observe no significant variation in $α$ across the entire range of spatial scales traced in our study, indicating that turbulence may be cascading down and dissipating at smaller scales. While there is no precise proper motion measurement for this pulsar, our estimates for the turbulence dissipation in the CNM place the lower and upper limits at less than 0.03 au and 0.4 au, respectively.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_09139
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tiny-Scale Properties within the Interstellar Medium towards PSR J1644$-$4559: I. Observational Evidence of Turbulence-induced Tiny Scale Atomic Structures
Liu, Mengting
Li, Di
Dawson, J. R.
Weisberg, Joel M.
Stanimirović, Snežana
Hobbs, George
Johnston, Simon
Toomey, Lawrence
Xu, Siyao
Tsai, Chao-Wei
Quan, Donghui
Mader, Stacy
Green, James A.
Zhang, Lei
Tang, Ningyu
Wang, Pei
Zhang, Kai
Zuo, Pei
Luo, Gan
Feng, Yi
Dai, Shi
Kaushik, Aditi
Xue, Mengyao
Miao, Chenchen
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We investigated HI absorption toward a single pulsar, PSR J1644$-$4559, and its variability over timescales from days to years, using Murriyang, CSIRO's Parkes Radio Telescope. Our 19 epochs of spectral observations, spanning 1.2 years with intervals as short as 1 day, provide the most comprehensive cadence coverage for monitoring HI absorption to date. We identified two significant detections of tiny-scale atomic structure (TSAS) with spatial scales ranging from a lower limit of $\sim$11 au to an upper limit of 165 au, both exhibiting integrated signal-to-noise ratios exceeding 5.0. We find a relationship between linear size and optical depth variation in the cold neutral medium (CNM) component hosting the TSAS, described by a power-law relationship, $Δτ_{\rm int} = Δτ_0 (ΔL)^{(α-2)/2}$, with $α= 4.1 \pm 0.4$. This is the first observational evidence explicitly connecting TSAS to turbulence in CNM. This power-law index is significantly steeper than previously reported values for the CNM, where $α$ ranges from 2.3 to 2.9, but similar to those observed in the warm ionized gas. Additionally, we observe no significant variation in $α$ across the entire range of spatial scales traced in our study, indicating that turbulence may be cascading down and dissipating at smaller scales. While there is no precise proper motion measurement for this pulsar, our estimates for the turbulence dissipation in the CNM place the lower and upper limits at less than 0.03 au and 0.4 au, respectively.
title Tiny-Scale Properties within the Interstellar Medium towards PSR J1644$-$4559: I. Observational Evidence of Turbulence-induced Tiny Scale Atomic Structures
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.09139