Simulation Studies for Faraday Rotation Measure Observations

Limited by the spatial resolution of a radio telescope, multiple sources may be overlapped in the observing direction of the telescope. The Faraday rotation measure (RM) and polarization angle (PA) measurements of a target radio source will be affected by the other background radio sources located in the directional beam. The simulation study indicates that the influence of background radio sources on the polarization measurement of the target source depends on the RM values of interference sources. The RM value obtained by fitting the data of polarization observations at 2 or 3 wavelengths is not reliable. To obtain the accurate RM value of the target source needs to make fitting on the Stokes parameters Q and U observed at multiple wavebands.