The 1997 periastron passage of the binary pulsar PSR B1259−63

We report here on multifrequency radio observations of the pulsed emission from PSR B1259−63 around the time of the closest approach (periastron) to its B2e companion star. There was a general increase in the dispersion measure (DM) and scatter-broadening of the pulsar, and a decrease in the flux density towards periastron although fluctuation in these parameters were seen on time-scales as short as minutes. The pulsed emission disappeared 16 d prior to periastron and remained undetectable until 16 d after periastron. The observations are used to determine the parameters of the wind from the Be star. We show that a simple model, in which the wind density varies with radius as r−2, provides a good fit to the data. The wind is highly turbulent with an outer scale of ≤1010 cm and an inner scale perhaps as small as 104 cm, a mean density of ∼106 cm−3 and a velocity of ∼2000 km s−1 at a distance of ∼50 stellar radii. We find a correlation between DM variations and the pulse scattering times, suggesting that the same electrons are responsible for both effects.