Refractive Convergent Plasma Lenses explain ESE and pulsar scintillation

Understand

We propose convergent plasma lenses, possibly from current sheets, as a generic solution to strong interstellar scattering.

• These lenses resolve the overpressure problem by geometric alignment as noted by Goldreich and Shridhar (2006).
• They further quantitatively explain properties of extreme scattering events, and pulsar parabolic arcs.
• This model makes quantitative predictions testable by VLBI on scattering events.