Scintillation measurements of the millisecond pulsar PSR J0030+0451 and pulsar space velocities

Scintillation observations of the nearby single millisecond pulsar (MSP) PSR J0030+0451 were carried out with the Parkes 64 m radiotelescope at three different epochs in 1999. From analysis of the dynamic spectrum we obtained the amplitude of the electron density power spectrum log /line{CN2} =~ -3.33 and a scintillation velocity Viss <~ 15 km s-1. This result shows that the Shklovskii effect on the spin-down rate dot P is negligible. We also performed a correlation analysis between pulsar proper motions (Vpm) and scintillation velocities (Viss) using updated measurements for a sample of 77 objects, 17 of which are MSPs. The full sample shows a correlation coefficient rs =~ 80% at an extremely high significance level, while for the MSP sub-sample (excluding 2 outliers) we obtain rs =~ 90%.