Turbulence in the coronal interstellar medium

Abstract

Low frequency scintillation observations of the nearby pulsar 0950+08 show that C2n, the amplitude of the electron density fluctuation spectrum, is ≂10−4.5 m−20/3 along the line of sight, a value which is 5 to 10 times smaller that C2n measured towards other pulsars within a few kpc of Earth. Since the line of sight to PSR 0950+08 is contained mostly within the local X‐ray bubble we can conclude that the coronal phase of the interstellar medium is weakly scattering.