Scintillation of Solar Radio Sources: Implication for Spikes

Abstract

Possible scattering regimes of the emission from a solar radio source due to dielectric permitivity fluctuations of an extended coronal plasma co-rotating with the Sun are discussed. The exact and approximate expressions are given for the spectrum of temporal intensity fluctuations in the regime of weak scattering. The frequency, at which the spectrum shows a bend, is determined by the location of the effective scattering screen if the source size is not too large. In the regime of strong scattering of the emission from a broadbanded nonimpulsive radio source, the formation of random intensity spikes, namely millisecond, narrowbanded spike bursts is a possibility. Their apparent size can be quite significant. However, the sources with very small true sizes are required in order to produce strong spikes.