PACERMAN - I. A new algorithm to calculate Faraday rotation maps

We propose a new method to calculate Faraday rotation measure maps from multifrequency polarization angle data. In order to solve the so-called eta pi-ambiguity problem which arises from the observational ambiguity of the polarization angle which is only determined up to additions of +/- n pi, where n is an integer, we suggest using a global scheme. Instead of solving the n pi-ambiguity for each data point independently, our algorithm, which we chose to call PACER-MAN (Polarization Angle CorrEcting Rotation Measure ANalysis), solves the n pi-ambiguity for a high signal-to-noise region 'democratically' and uses this information to assist computations in adjacent low signal-to-noise areas.