Radio scintillation of gamma-ray-burst afterglows

Abstract

Stars twinkle to the eye through atmospheric turbulence, but planets, because of their larger angular size, do not. Similarly, scintillation due to the local interstellar medium will modulate the radio flux of gamma-ray-burst afterglows and may permit indirect measurements of their angular sizes. The amplitude of refractive scintillation is of order ten percent at ten gigahertz unless the source size is much larger than the expected size, of order ten microarcseconds. Diffractive scintillation is marginally possible, depending sensitively on the source size, observing frequency, and scattering measure of the interstellar medium.