Global InformationFast radio burst information
In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond, for an ultra-fast radio burst,[2][3] to 3 seconds,[4] caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB releases as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days.[5] While extremely energetic at their source, the strength of the signal reaching Earth has been described as 1,000 times less than from a mobile phone on the Moon.[6]
The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as the Lorimer Burst.[7][8] Many FRBs have since been recorded, including several that have been detected to repeat in seemingly irregular ways.[9][10][11][12][13] Only one FRB has been detected to repeat in a regular way: FRB 180916 seems to pulse every 16.35 days.[14][15]
Most FRBs are extragalactic, but the first Milky Way FRB was detected by the CHIME radio telescope in April 2020.[16] In June 2021, astronomers reported over 500 FRBs from outer space detected in one year.[17]
When the FRBs are polarized, it indicates that they are emitted from a source contained within an extremely powerful magnetic field.[18] The exact origin and cause of the FRBs is still the subject of investigation; proposals for their origin range from a rapidly rotating neutron star and a black hole, to extraterrestrial intelligence.[19][20] In 2020, astronomers reported narrowing down a source of fast radio bursts, which may now plausibly include "compact-object mergers and magnetars arising from normal core collapse supernovae".[21][22][23] A neutron star has been proposed as the origin of an unusual FRB with periodic peaks lasting over 3 seconds reported in 2022.[24]
The discovery in 2012 of the first repeating source, FRB 121102, and its localization and characterization in 2017, has improved the understanding of the source class. FRB 121102 is identified with a galaxy at a distance of approximately three billion light-years and is embedded in an extreme environment.[25][18] The first host galaxy identified for a non-repeating burst, FRB 180924, was identified in 2019 and is a much larger and more ordinary galaxy, nearly the size of the Milky Way. In August 2019, astronomers reported the detection of eight more repeating FRB signals.[26][27] In January 2020, astronomers reported the precise location of a second repeating burst, FRB 180916.[28][29] One FRB seems to have been in the same location as a known gamma-ray burst.[30][16]
On 28 April 2020, a pair of millisecond-timescale bursts (FRB 200428) consistent with observed fast radio bursts, with a fluence of >1.5 million Jy ms, was detected from the same area of sky as the magnetar SGR 1935+2154.[31][32] Although it was thousands of times less intrinsically bright than previously observed fast radio bursts, its comparative proximity rendered it the most powerful fast radio burst yet observed, reaching a peak flux of either a few thousand or several hundred thousand janskys, comparable to the brightness of the radio sources Cassiopeia A and Cygnus A at the same frequencies. This established magnetars as, at least, one ultimate source of fast radio bursts,[33][34][35] although the exact cause remains unknown.[36][37][38] Further studies support the notion that magnetars may be closely associated with FRBs.[39][40] On 13 October 2021, astronomers reported the detection of hundreds of FRBs from a single system.[41][42]
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- ^ Snelders, M.P.; et al. (19 October 2023). "Detection of ultra-fast radio bursts from FRB 20121102A". Nature Astronomy. arXiv:2307.02303. doi:10.1038/s41550-023-02101-x. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
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- ^ Petroff, E.; Hessels, J. W. T.; Lorimer, D. R. (2019-05-24). "Fast radio bursts". The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. 27 (1): 4. arXiv:1904.07947. Bibcode:2019A&ARv..27....4P. doi:10.1007/s00159-019-0116-6. ISSN 1432-0754. S2CID 174799415.
With peak flux densities of approximately 1 Jy, this implied an isotropic energy of 10^32 J (10^39 erg) in a few milliseconds
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- ^ "Are Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts Coming From the Collapse of Strange Star Crusts?". Universe Today. May 17, 2018.
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- ^ Chu, Jennifer (9 June 2021). "CHIME Telescope Detects More Than 500 Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts From Outer Space". SciTechDaily. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
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- ^ Strickland, Ashley (January 10, 2018). "What's sending mysterious repeating fast radio bursts in space?". CNN.
- ^ Starr, Michelle (1 June 2020). "Astronomers Just Narrowed Down The Source of Those Powerful Radio Signals From Space". ScienceAlert.com. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
- ^ Carter, Jamie (3 June 2020). "Four 'Mysterious Signals From Outer Space' Are Coming From Galaxies Like Ours, Say Scientists". Forbes. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ^ Bhandan, Shivani (1 June 2020). "The Host Galaxies and Progenitors of Fast Radio Bursts Localized with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 895 (2): L37. arXiv:2005.13160. Bibcode:2020ApJ...895L..37B. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab672e. S2CID 218900539.
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- ^ Balles, Matthew (6 January 2020). "Not all fast radio bursts are created equal – Astronomical signals called fast radio bursts remain enigmatic, but a key discovery has now been made. A second repeating fast radio burst has been traced to its host galaxy, and its home bears little resemblance to that of the first". Nature. 577 (7789): 176–177. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03894-6. PMID 31907452.
- ^ Wang, Xiang-Gao; et al. (Apr 25, 2020). "Is GRB 110715A the progenitor of FRB 171209?". The Astrophysical Journal. 894 (2): L22. arXiv:2004.12050. Bibcode:2020ApJ...894L..22W. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab8d1d. S2CID 216553325.
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- ^ Cofield, Calla; Andreoli, Calire; Reddy, Francis (4 November 2020). "NASA Missions Help Pinpoint the Source of a Unique X-ray, Radio Burst". NASA. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
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- ^ Hall, Shannon (11 June 2020). "A Surprise Discovery Points to the Source of Fast Radio Bursts - After a burst lit up their telescope "like a Christmas tree," astronomers were able to finally track down the source of these cosmic oddities". Quantum Magazine. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
- ^ University of Nevada (26 December 2020). "Astrophysicists Unveil the Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts". SciTechDaily.com. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
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- ^ Xin, Ling (13 October 2021). "FAST, the World's Largest Radio Telescope, Zooms in on a Furious Cosmic Source - China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope has detected more than 1,600 fast radio bursts from a single enigmatic system". Scientific American. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
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