A Unified Vector Electromagnetic Framework for Ionospheric Scintillation and Polarization Effects in GNSS

The ionosphere imposes coupled amplitude, phase, and polarization distortions on trans-ionospheric GNSS signals, reflecting the structure and dynamics of electron-density irregularities. Classical weak-scatter theory provides a mature framework for interpreting amplitude and phase scintillation, but these quantities have almost exclusively been treated as scalars. In contrast, the electromagnetic field is inherently vectorial: its two orthogonal polarization components carry additional information about propagation through a magnetized plasma. A unified treatment that incorporates this vector structure has been largely absent from GNSS scintillation studies. This work develops a Jones–Stokes electromagnetic formulation that embeds Faraday rotation and its fluctuations within the same physical framework used to describe amplitude and phase scintillation. The approach yields a polarization scintillation metric derived from the detrended Faraday angle, exposes frequency-normalized relations that enable cross-band validation, and provides a TEC-normalized estimator of the line-of-sight magnetic field–a pathway toward GNSS-based Faraday-rotation magnetometry. By extending scintillation analysis from scalar to vector diagnostics, this formulation reveals new scientific opportunities for remote sensing ionospheric anisotropy, magnetic-field coupling, and irregularity morphology, and offers operational potential for improved space weather monitoring using existing GNSS infrastructure.