Radiation scattering of pulsars by interstellar turbulent plasma

The Stochastic Transport Theory has been applied to the problem of the propagation of a pulsar signal in the turbulent interstellar plasma. The theoretical results have been used to predict the amplitude fluctuations of the pulsar and the correlation of the pulsar signal in the frequency domain. The theoretical results have been compared to the results of a few experiments and used to determine the mean scale size of the turbulence. Such a theory is of interest not only to promote a better understanding of the effects of the interstellar medium on the pulsar characteristics, but also to understand better the interstellar medium itself. This better understanding of the interstellar medium may be used to improve the design of adaptive receivers in the search for extra-terrestrial digital signals from space