Galactic distribution of pulsar scattering

However, Galactic distribution and the structure of the scattering medium are still poorly understood. Pulsar pulse broadening data available for a relatively large number of pulsars is well-suited for such investigations.

We collected an up-to-date sample of publicly-available pulsar scattering data and introduced a new quantity - the reduced scattering strength to study the Galactic distribution of pulsar scattering in the Milky Way. We show that the current observations are dominated by two distinct pulsar populations: a local and an inner-Galactic one separated by {tilde}{tau}=10^-5.1^s.cm^6^/pc. The stronger electron density fluctuations associated with the inner-Galactic population naturally explain the observed steepening of pulsar scattering time - dispersion measure (DM) relation.