Abstract
INDIVIDUAL radio pulses from many pulsars have been found to be highly polarized. Pulses from PSR 0329 contain a large circular component1, so that the polarization is generally elliptical, but the handiness of the circular component appears to be variable, so that the Stokes parameter V changes in sign both during an individual pulse and from pulse to pulse. If this variation were completely random, then an integrated profile of V obtained by summing several hundred pulses would be close to zero. The Stokes parameters Q and U, on the other hand, representing linear polarization, do not sum to zero in this way and large average linear polarizations are observed in many pulsars2–5. So far, however, only one observation2 of one pulsar (PSR 1749) suggests that the average V profile is significantly different from zero. In an extended series of observations, we now find that the average V component is significantly different from zero in many pulsars, although it seldom approaches the strength of the linear component (Q2 + U2)½. The average V component is particularly strong in the pulsars PSR 0329 and PSR 1508.
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GRAHAM, D. Circular Components of Polarization in Pulsar Radiation. Nature 229, 326–327 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1038/229326a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/229326a0
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