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Description
We have made observations of 98 low Galactic latitude pulsars to measure pulse broadening caused by multipath propagation through the interstellar medium. Data were collected with the 305m Arecibo telescope at four radio frequencies between 430 and 2380MHz. We used a CLEAN-based algorithm to deconvolve interstellar pulse broadening from the measured pulse shapes. We employed two distinct pulse-broadening functions (PBFs): PBF_1_ is appropriate for a thin screen of scattering material between the Earth and a pulsar, while PBF_2_ is appropriate for scattering material uniformly distributed along the line of sight from the Earth to a pulsar. We found that some observations were better fitted by PBF_1_ and some by PBF_2_. Pulse-broadening times ({tau}_d_) are derived from fits of PBFs to the data and are compared with the predictions of a smoothed model of the Galactic electron distribution. Several lines of sight show excess broadening, which we model as clumps of high-density scattering material.
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