Diffractive scintillation of the pulsar PSR B1259-63

PSR B1259-63 is in a highly eccentric 3.4 yr orbit around the Be star SS 2883. The system is located in the direction of the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm at a distance of similar to 1.5 kpc. We have made scintillation observations of the pulsar far from periastron at 4.8 and 8.4 GHz, determining the diffractive bandwidth, Delta nu(d), and timescale. Delta t(d), at both frequencies. We find no dependence on orbital phase until within 30 days of periastron. The data indicate that the scintillation is caused not by the circumstellar environment but by an H II region within the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm located at least three-quarters of the way to the pulsar. Close to periastron, when the line of sight to the pulsar intersects the disk of the Be star, the electron densities within the disk are sufficient to overcome the "lever-arm effect" and produce a reduction in the scintillation bandwidth by 6 orders of magnitude.