A SPECKLE HOLOGRAM OF THE INTERSTELLAR PLASMA

Observations of a speckle hologram of scattering material along the line of sight to the Vela pulsar indicate that this material is concentrated in the Vela supernova remnant, deep within the Gum Nebula. The speckle hologram is observed through the amplitude and phase variations of the interferometric cross-power spectrum with time and frequency. These variations describe the density fluctuations of the interstellar plasma, in a holographic fashion. The decorrelation due to the phase variations of the speckles yields the angular size of the scattering disk; comparison with the bandwidth of their amplitude variations yields a characteristic distance from Earth to the scattering material of 0.81 +/- 0.03 of the distance from Earth to the pulsar. Our result is consistent with theories of irregularities associated with particle acceleration in shocks in supernova remnants.