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J-P Macquart, D B Melrose (Univ. of Sydney)
Just as inhomogenieties in the galactic electron distribution lead to variability in the intensity of compact sources through interstellar scintillation, inhomogenieties in the rotation measure lead to polarization-dependent propagation effects. In particular, this may lead to the production of circular polarization, even from unpolarized sources. We describe the means by which this polarization is generated and present a brief outline of the formalism for the propagation of the second and fourth order moments of the electric field through the interstellar medium, incorporating the effect of spatial variations in the rotation measure.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jpm@physics.usyd.edu.au