Explain polarization-dependent sensitivity degradations in pulsar observations

Determine why some pulsar events exhibit reduced cross-correlation signal-to-noise in one polarization after applying the updated HCO calibration and feed-position corrections, while the opposing polarization compensates for the loss.

Background

Across the pulsar sample, most events improve after the updated calibration and feed-position procedures, but a small number perform worse in one polarization. The loss is generally small and is compensated by equal or greater improvement in the other polarization, so the overall observing strategy remains beneficial.

The authors explicitly state that the cause of this polarization-dependent behavior is not understood. They tentatively suggest that flux may be redistributed between the two visibility eigenmodes, but do not establish this explanation.