Propagation effects have been central to pulsar research and indeed were an integral part of the pulsar discovery and its prologue. I will summarize the early deduction process for establishing pulsar distances and refinements to the distance scale and modeling of the Galaxy in electron density and magnetic field. This will lead to the analogous current situation of understanding distances and media for extragalactic radio bursts. The role of magnetoionic media in precision pulsar timing and surveys for transients will be summarized. Finally, going full circle, searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (LGMs) also require attention to propagation effects.

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) will give us an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the transient sky at radio wavelengths. In this paper we present VAST, an ASKAP survey for Variables and Slow Transients. VAST will exploit the wide-field survey capabilities of ASKAP to enable the discovery and investigation of variable and transient phenomena from the local to the cosmological, including flare stars, intermittent pulsars, X-ray binaries, magnetars, extreme scattering events, interstellar scintillation, radio supernovae, and orphan afterglows of gamma-ray bursts. In addition, it will allow us to probe unexplored regions of parameter space where new classes of transient sources may be detected. In this paper we review the known radio transient and variable populations and the current results from blind radio surveys. We outline a comprehensive program based on a multi-tiered survey strategy to characterise the radio transient sky through detection and monitoring of transient and variable sources on the ASKAP imaging timescales of 5 s and greater. We also present an analysis of the expected source populations that we will be able to detect with VAST.

The radio band is known to be rich in variable and transient sources, but exploration of it has only begun only in the last few years. Relevant time scales are as small as a fraction of a nanosecond (giant pulses from the Crab pulsar). Short transients (less than one second, say) have signal structure in the time-frequency plane at the very least because of interstellar plasma propagation effects (dispersion and scattering), and in some cases due to emission structure. Optimal detection requires handling a range of signal types in the time-frequency plane. Short bursts by necessity have very large effective radiation brightness temperatures associated with coherent emission processes. This paper surveys relevant source classes and summarizes propagation effects that must be considered to optimize detection in large-scale surveys. Scattering horizons for the interstellar and intergalactic media are defined, and the role of the radio band in panchromatic and multimessenger studies is discussed.

The first extrasolar planetary system was discovered around the pulsar PSR B1257+12, and the planets therein remain the lowest mass exoplanets known (with one whose mass is of order a lunar mass). Pulsar planetary systems will remain the only extrasolar planetary systems within which terrestrial-mass planets can be detected for the near future, and multiple pulsar planetary systems would provide strong circumstantial evidence that terrestrial-mass planets are ubiquitous, and possibly information about the formation of terrestrial-mass planets. We summarize two searches for planetary or proto-planetary systems around pulsars. The first is a series of infrared observations of millisecond pulsars in which the objective is to detect (proto-planetary) disks. The second uses a genetic algorithm—a function optimization method based on evolutionary processes in the natural world—to search for the signatures of planetary perturbations in pulse timing data.

As part of a multi-wavelength study, we report on a 50 ks Chandra/ACIS observation of the Guitar Nebula, a bow shock nebula associated with the radio pulsar B2224+65. We see a “hot spot” at the tip of the bow shock. We also notice a “jet” of X-ray emission at position angle (PA) −69°. However, the proper motion of the pulsar and the axis of optical emission is at PA 52°.1. We discuss the resulting interpretations of the relativistic pulsar wind and the surrounding ISM.

We outline some new techniques being used and present initial results from a pulsar astrometry program at the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). We find a proper motion of 89.0±0.4 mas/yr and a preliminary parallax of 1.05±0.25 mas for B0919+06.

A radio pulsar in the Galactic center will suffer 350 seconds of pulse broadening. An imaging search for compact sources is far less desensitized by angular broadening than a periodicity search is affected by pulse broadening. We have conducted an imaging survey of the GC using the VLA and have detected approximately 200 sources. Six compact, steep-spectrum sources have been identified; additional compact sources with no spectral information have also been identified. Additional observations are in progress.

We present optical observations and radio non-detections of the bow shock nebula associated with the pulsar B2224+65 (the “Guitar Nebula”), and fit an analytic model to the observed bow shock to estimate its inclination and constrain other parameters (distance, pulsar velocity, ISM density). We also test scaling laws for bow shock parameters.

Interstellar scattering dictates the limiting resolution for many pulsars and OH masers and some extragalactic sources, a limit made more important by the advent of spacebased VLBI. Scattering observations have been biased toward the inner Galaxy, leaving largely unconstrained basic parameters such as the scattering medium’s extent in the outer Galaxy. Ionized gas at ~ 50 kpc is suggested by the appearance of H ɪ in nearby galaxies and models of low-redshift quasar absorption systems. We combine multiwavelength, VLBA observations of twelve extragalactic sources with previous scattering measurements of extragalactic sources and pulsars in the anticenter and constrain the radial extent of the scattering medium to 20 kpc, comparable to that of massive star formation. The H ɪɪ disk does not display significant flaring or warping, though this conclusion may reflect the coarse sampling.

We summarize our efforts at understanding the galactic neutron star (NS) population using likelihood and bayesian analyses. These include determination of the velocity distribution of young, high-magnetic field objects; the spatial, velocity, period and luminosity distributions of millisecond pulsars; and a full analysis of high-field objects including modeling of pulsars’ radio beams with the implicit assumption that such objects, for fixed period and period derivative, are standard candles.

I discuss pulsar wind nebulae for which ram pressure from the neutron star’s motion is a key element of the morphology. These PWN are tools for determining the pulsar distance, radial velocity component, and interaction of pulsar winds with surrounding media. The Guitar Nebula pulsar (B2224+65) also represents a ‘smoking gun’ for velocity kicks from asymmetric supernovae or other rocket effects. The detectability of wind nebulae from pulsars and from as-yet unknown neutron stars is discussed.

Magnetospheric issues are discussed as they relate to radio intensity variations, spindown, rotational noise, and emission altitudes. Radio fluctuations trace the overall state(s) of the magnetosphere in spite of the fact that Lradio ≪ IΩ. Five methods for estimating emission altitudes re are discussed. Four measure either the transverse width or radial depth of the emission region; assumption of a dipolar field and, in some cases, a radius to frequency mapping, yields estimates for the absolute radius of the emission region. The fifth method (v/c effects in Stokes parameter waveforms) provides direct altitude estimates. Most results suggest that re ≲ 0.02 RLC at v = 0.4 GHz. A radius to frequency mapping appears viable for some but not necessarily all objects. The mapping need not be one-to-one. Prospects are discussed for using simultaneous radio and high energy observations to make further progress in our understanding of magnetospheres.

We discuss small scale structure in the Galactic magnetic field as inferred from Faraday rotation measurements of extragalactic radio sources. The rotation measure data suggest a continuum of length scales extending from parsec scales down to at least 0.01 pc and perhaps to as small as 109 cm. Such turbulence in the magnetic field comprises a reservoir of energy that is comparable to the energy in the large scale field.

The formation of neutron stars in binary systems is often used to explain the nature of specific radio pulsars and characteristics of the pulsar population as a whole. We have investigated the extent to which such scenarios provide a self-consistent description of the pulsar population. Using a computer simulation, we modeled the evolution of the main sequence stellar population and compared the predicted neutron star population to the observed radio pulsar population, focusing our attention on the pulsar velocity distribution and the incidence of binary pulsars. These characteristics relate very directly to the binary nature of pulsar progenitors, and are not strongly dependent on models of pulsar magentic field and luminosity evolution.

The need to reproduce both the high velocities typical of pulsars and the low incidence of binary pulsars strongly constrains the formation of pulsars in binary systems. Unless one assumes that virtually all pulsars originate in close binary systems, the observed velocity distribution cannot result from the disruption of binary systems by symmetric supernova explosions; some additional acceleration process (e.g. asymmetric supernova mass ejection or asymmetries in pulsar radiation) must act during or soon after a pulsar's formation. It is possible to reproduce the velocity distribution by assuming that all pulsars are born in binary systems with initial orbital periods less than about 30 years. However, the predicted incidence of binaries is then too large by more than an order of magnitude, unless one also assumes that the process of mass transfer from the primary to the secondary is almost always non-conservative, or that the minimum mass necessary for a stripped helium core to explode as a supernova is larger (over 4 M⊙) than currently believed. Further analyses of the radio pulsar population, the X-ray binary population and the abundances of elements ejected in supernovae should help determine which of these alternatives is most reasonble. Additional studies of the main sequence stellar population, accounting more accurately for evolutionary and observational selection effects, will reduce the uncertainties in modeling the formation of the neutron star population.

It has also been suggested that the observed correlation between pulsar velocities and magnetic moments (see Cordes, these Proceedings) is induced by the differing evolutionary paths by which stars in binary systems form radio pulsars. Our simulation does not reproduce this correlation, and we do not find any paths likely to produce low velocity, low magnetic field neutron stars not in binary systems.

We are submitting a full description of our model and results to The Astrophysical Journal.

Fine scale electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium (ISM) are manifest as scintillations and temporal broadening of pulsar signals and as angular broadening of galactic and extragalactic sources. Although scattering off the fluctuations is often a nuisance for conventional studies of radio sources, analysis or searches for interstellar scintillations (ISS) can lead to information about the ISM or radio sources that otherwise would not be obtainable. For example, the length scale probed by ISS in the ISM is typically 1011 cm and the characteristic angular size for quenching ISS is less than 1 μarc sec.

The average shape of micropulses in two pulsars is highly symmetric, unlike the subpulse emission which is skewed in the same sense as the average profiles. These conclusions stem from a third-order correlation analysis of the emission from PSR 0950+08 and PSR 2016+28. The symmetric micropulses may be produced either by temporal modulation or angular beaming of the radiation. If due to temporal modulation, this average symmetry implies a distribution of time-scales in the emission process: the difference between the rise time-scale (τr) and the decay time-scale (τd) must be small compared to δτr and/or δτd. Subpulses in PSR 0950+08 are narrower than and have the same sense of asymmetry as the average profile. In PSR 2016+28 the two subpulses typically present in a pulse are both tapered toward the outside edge of the pulse. In both pulsars, the skewness of the subpulses contributes significantly to the skewness of the average profile; a symmetrical distribution of these subpulses within the pulse window could then give rise to an asymmetrical profile.