| Summary: | Considerable evidence has accumulated that strongly favours interstellar scintillation (ISS) as the principal mechanism causing intra-day variability (IDV) at cm wavelengths. This includes the observed frequency dependence of IDV, the measured time-delay in the IDV pattern as seen at two widely spaced radio telescopes, and the presence of an annual time-signature in the behaviour of the long-term IDV variability. While ISS reduces the implied brightness temperatures, they remain uncomfortably high. There appear to be several obstacles to explaining the observations with synchrotron theory: first, the brightness temperatures appear to be up to two orders of magnitude above the inverse Compton limit, second, the observed IDV lifetimes of more than a decade are much longer than expected, and third, there is the presence of strong and variable circular polarization in several sources.
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