Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
Fine scale electron density fluctuations in the interstellar medium (ISM) are manifest as scintillations and temporal broadening of pulsar signals and as angular broadening of galactic and extragalactic sources. Although scattering off the fluctuations is often a nuisance for conventional studies of radio sources, analysis or searches for interstellar scintillations (ISS) can lead to information about the ISM or radio sources that otherwise would not be obtainable. For example, the length scale probed by ISS in the ISM is typically 1011 cm and the characteristic angular size for quenching ISS is less than 1 μarc sec.