Emerging Trends in Interstellar Scintillation Studies

Scintillation of pulsars and other compact objects results from multipath propagation through the intervening medium. Traditionally, the interstellar medium has been thought of as a volume-filling turbulent medium. The discovery of parabolic scintillation arcs has somewhat upended the long-held view. The direct imaging of highly anisotropic scattering in B0834+06 has further strengthened the argument for localized scattering. It has also spawned numerical techniques to deconvolve the scattered wavefield, which has immense potential for rapid holography for a large number of lines of sight. In principle, this holds the promise for 3D tomography of the electron distribution around us, now aided additionally by fast radio bursts. I will discuss recent results with both pulsars as well as fast radio bursts using unconventional methods and improved instrumentation, and motivate what these emerging trends in the studies of scintillation hold for the future.