Effects of Intermittent Emission: Noise Inventory for Scintillating
  Pulsar B0834+06
  We compare signal and noise for observations of the scintillating pulsar
B0834+06, using very-long baseline interferometry and a single-dish
spectrometer. Comparisons between instruments and with models suggest that
amplitude variations of the pulsar strongly affect the amount and distribution
of self-noise. We show that noise follows a quadratic polynomial with flux
density, in spectral observations. Constant coefficients, indicative of
background noise, agree well with expectation; whereas second-order
coefficients, indicative of self-noise, are about 3 times values expected for a
pulsar with constant on-pulse flux density. We show that variations in flux
density during the 10-sec integration account for the discrepancy. In the
secondary spectrum, about 97% of spectral power lies within the pulsar's
typical scintillation bandwidth and timescale; an extended scintillation arc
contains about 3%. For a pulsar with constant on-pulse flux density, noise in
the dynamic spectrum will appear as a uniformly-distributed background in the
secondary spectrum. We find that this uniform noise background contains 95% of
noise in the dynamic spectrum for interferometric observations; but only 35% of
noise in the dynamic spectrum for single-dish observations. Receiver and sky
dominate noise for our interferometric observations, whereas self-noise
dominates for single-dish. We suggest that intermittent emission by the pulsar,
on timescales < 300 microseconds, concentrates self-noise near the origin in
the secondary spectrum, by correlating noise over the dynamic spectrum. We
suggest that intermittency sets fundamental limits on pulsar astrometry or
timing. Accounting of noise may provide means for detection of intermittent
sources, when effects of propagation are unknown or impractical to invert.
