A fast radio burst (FRB) is a high energy astrophysical phenomenon manifested as a transient radio pulse lasting only a few milliseconds. FRBs show a frequency-dependent dispersion consistent with propagation through an ionized plasma.[1] As of March 2015 eleven bursts have been detected, all but one by the Parkes radio telescope.
The origin of FRBs is not known: they are generally thought to be extragalactic due to the anomalously high amount of pulse dispersion observed. It has also been suggested that they may originate from nearby stars.[2] It has also been speculated that they might be signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.[3][4]
FRBs are identified by the date the signal was recorded, as "YYMMDD" - e.g. one on 26 June 2011 would be called FRB 110626.[5] The oldest so far found is FRB 010621. On January 19, 2015, astronomers at Australia's national science agency (CSIRO) reported that, for the first time, a fast radio burst had been observed live (at Parkes).[6]
Closely related to FRBs are Perytons, dispersed pulses which share some of the same characteristics as FRBs, but are of terrestrial origin. Perytons were shown in April 2015 to be due to emissions from premature opening of microwave oven doors in the Parkes observatory cafeteria,[7] while FRBs remain as most likely high energy astrophysical sources.
Lorimer Burst
The burst was discovered in archived data taken in 2001 by the Parkes radio dish in Australia.[8] Analysis of the survey data and found a 30-jansky dispersed burst that occurred in 24 Aug 2001,[1] less than 5 milliseconds in duration, located 3° from the Small Magellanic Cloud. The reported burst properties argue against a physical association with the Milky Way galaxy or the Small Magellanic Cloud. The burst became known as the Lorimer burst.[9] The discoverers argue that current models for the free electron content in the universe imply that the burst is less than 1 gigaparsec distant. The fact that no further bursts were seen in 90 hours of additional observations implies that it was a singular event such as a supernova or merger of relativistic objects.[1] It is suggested that hundreds of similar events could occur every day and, if detected, could serve as cosmological probes.[10]
Radio pulsar surveys such as Astropulse and SETI@home offer one of the few opportunities to monitor the radio sky for impulsive burst-like events with millisecond durations.[citation needed]
Further developments
In 2010 there was a new report of 16 similar pulses, clearly of terrestrial origin, detected by the Parkes radio telescope, and given the name Perytons.[11] In 2015 some Perytons were shown to be generated when microwave oven doors were opened during operation, with emission generated from the magnetron.[7]
In 2013 four bursts were identified that supported the likelihood of extragalactic sources.[5]
An observation in 2012 of an FRB (FRB 121102) in the direction of Auriga in the northern hemisphere using the Arecibo radio telescope has confirmed the extragalactic origin of fast radio pulses by an effect known as plasma dispersion. Victoria Kaspi of the McGill University also confirms the initial estimate of 10,000 FRBs per day over the entire sky.[12]
FRB 140514, caught 'live', was found to be 21% (+/- 7%) circularly polarised.[6]
Hypotheses
Because of the isolated nature of the observed phenomenon, the nature of the source remains speculative. As of 2015, there is no generally accepted explanation. The emission region is estimated to be no larger than a few hundred kilometers. If the bursts come from cosmological distances, their sources must be very bright.[13] One possible explanation would be a collision between very dense objects like collapsing black holes or neutron stars.[8] Blitzars are another proposed explanation.[13] It has been suggested that there is a connection to gamma ray bursts.[14][15] It has also been proposed that if FRBs originate in black hole explosions, FRBs would be the first detection of quantum gravity effects.[8][16]
List of bursts
name | date-time UTC for 1581.804688 MHz |
RA J2000 |
dec J2000 |
DM cm−3pc |
DM/187.5 (rounded)[17] |
width ms |
peak flux Jy |
notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FRB 010621[18] | 2001/06/21 13:02:10.795 | 18h52′ | -08°29′ | 746 | 3.9 | 7.8 | 0.4 | |
FRB 010724[1] | 2001/07/24 19:50:01.63 | 01h18′06″ | -75°12′19″ | 375 | 2.0 | 4.6 | 30 | (Lorimer Burst) |
FRB 011025[19] | 2001/10/25 00:29:13.23 | 19h07′ | -40°37′ | 790 | 4.2 | 9.4 | 0.3 | |
FRB 110220[5] | 2011/02/20 01:55:48.957 | 22h34′ | -12°24′ | 944.38 | 5.0 | 5.6 | 1.3 | |
FRB 110627[5] | 2011/06/27 21:33:17.474 | 21h03′ | -44°44′ | 723.0 | 3.9 | <1.4 | 0.4 | |
FRB 110703[5] | 2011/07/03 18:59:40.591 | 23h30′ | -02°52′ | 1103.6 | 5.9 | <4.3 | 0.5 | |
FRB 120127[5] | 2012/01/27 08:11:21.723 | 23h15′ | -18°25′ | 553.3 | 2.9 | <1.1 | 0.5 | |
FRB 121002[20] | 2012/10/02 13:09:18.402 | 18h14′ | -85°11′ | 1628.76 | 8.7 | 2.1,3.7 | 0.35 | double pulse 5.1 ms apart |
FRB 121102[21] | 2012/11/02 06:35:53.244 | 05h32′ | 33°05 | 557 | 2.9 | 3.0 | 0.4 | by Arecibo RT |
FRB 131104[22] | 2013/11/04 18:04:01.2 | 06h44′ | -51°17′ | 779.0 | 4.1 | <0.64 | Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy | |
FRB 140514[23] | 2014/05/14 17:14:11.06 | 22h34′ | -12°18′ | 562.7 | 3.0 | 2.8 | 0.47 |
References
- ^ a b c d D. R. Lorimer; M. Bailes; M. A. McLaughlin; D. J. Narkevic; et al. (2007-09-27). "A Bright Millisecond Radio Burst of Extragalactic Origin". Science Magazine (Science) 318 (5851): 777–780. arXiv:0709.4301. Bibcode:2007Sci...318..777L. doi:10.1126/science.1147532. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
- ^ "Fast Radio Bursts Might Come From Nearby Stars", Harvard-Smithsonian centre for Astrophysics, December 12, 2013
- ^ Scoles, Sarah (March 31, 2015). "Is this ET? Mystery of strange radio bursts from space". New Scientist. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
- ^ Scoles, Sarah (4 April 2015). "Cosmic radio plays an alien tune". New Scientist 226 (3015): 8–9. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(15)30056-7. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
- ^ a b c d e f D. Thornton; B. Stappers; M. Bailes; B. Barsdell; et al. (2013-07-05). "A Population of Fast Radio Bursts at Cosmological Distances". Science. arXiv:1307.1628. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
- ^ a b "Cosmic radio burst caught red-handed". Royal Astronomical Society. 2015-01-19.
- ^ a b "Identifying the source of Perytons at the Parkes radio telescope" 2015 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>
tag; name "Petroff2015" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ a b c McKee, Maggie (27 September 2007). "Extragalactic radio burst puzzles astronomers". New Scientist. Retrieved 2015-09-18.
- ^ Chiao, May (2013). "No flash in the pan". Nature Physics 9 (8): 454–454. Bibcode:2013NatPh...9..454C. doi:10.1038/nphys2724.
- ^ Duncan Lorimer (West Virginia University, USA); Matthew Bailes (Swinburne University); Maura McLaughlin (West Virginia University, USA); David Narkevic (West Virginia University, USA); et al. (October 2007). "A bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin". Australia Telescope National Facility. Retrieved 2010-06-23.
- ^ Sarah Burke-Spolaor; Matthew Bailes; Ronald Ekers; Jean-Pierre Macquart; Fronefield Crawford III (2010). "Radio Bursts with Extragalactic Spectral Characteristics Show Terrestrial Origins". arXiv:1009.5392v1 [astro-ph.CO].
- ^ "Radio-burst discovery deepens astrophysics mystery" July 10 2014, Max Planck Inst
- ^ a b "A Brilliant Flash, Then Nothing: New “Fast Radio Bursts” Mystify Astronomers", Scientific American July 9, 2013
- ^ B. Zhang (2014-01-10). "A Possible Connection between Fast Radio Bursts and Gamma-Ray Bursts". The Astrophysical Journal Letters 780 (2): L21. arXiv:1310.4893. Bibcode:2014ApJ...780L..21Z. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/780/2/L21.
- ^ V. Ravi; P. D. Lasky (2014-05-20). "The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society) 441 (3): 2433. Bibcode:2014MNRAS.441.2433R. doi:10.1093/mnras/stu720.
- ^ A. Barrau; C. Rovelli & F. Vidotto (2014-09-14). "Fast radio bursts and white hole signals". Physical Review D (Phys. Rev. D) 90 (12): 127503. arXiv:1409.4031. Bibcode:2014PhRvD..90l7503B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.90.127503. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
- ^ Hippke, Michael; Domainko, Wilfried F.; Learned, John G. (30 March 2015), Discrete steps in dispersion measures of Fast Radio Bursts, arXiv:1503.05245, Bibcode:2015arXiv150305245H
- ^ Keane, E. F.; Stappers, B. W.; Kramer, M.; Lyne, A. G. (September 2012). "On the origin of a highly dispersed coherent radio burst". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters 425 (1): L71–L75. arXiv:1206.4135. Bibcode:2012MNRAS.425L..71K. doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2012.01306.x.arXiv:1206.4135
- ^ Burke-Spolaor, Sarah; Bannister, Keith W. (11 August 2014). "The Galactic Position Dependence of Fast Radio Bursts and the Discovery of FRB011025". The Astrophysical Journal 792 (1): 19. arXiv:1407.0400. Bibcode:2014ApJ...792...19B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/792/1/19.arXiv:1407.0400
- ^ Dan Thornton (September 2013). The High Time Resolution Radio Sky (PDF) (Thesis). Manchester. p. 140-147.
- ^ arXiv:1404.2934 Fast Radio Burst Discovered in the Arecibo Pulsar ALFA Survey
- ^ Ravi, V.; Shannon, R. M.; Jameson, A. (14 January 2015). "A Fast Radio Burst in the Direction of the Carine Dwarf Spheroildal Galaxy". The Astrophysical Journal 799 (1): L5. arXiv:1412.1599. Bibcode:2015ApJ...799L...5R. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/799/1/L5.arXiv:1412.1599
- ^ arXiv:1412.0342 Petroff, E.; Bailes, M.; Barr, E. D.; Barsdell, B. R.; Bhat, N. D. R.; Bian, F.; Burke-Spolaor, S.; Caleb, M.; Champion, D.; Chandra, P.; Da Costa, G.; Delvaux, C.; Flynn, C.; Gehrels, N.; Greiner, J.; Jameson, A.; Johnston, S.; Kasliwal, M. M.; Keane, E. F.; Keller, S.; Kocz, J.; Kramer, M.; Leloudas, G.; Malesani, D.; Mulchaey, J. S.; Ng, C.; Ofek, E. O.; Perley, D. A.; Possenti, A.; et al. (19 January 2015). "A real-time fast radio burst: polarization detection and multiwavelength follow-up". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 447 (1): 246–255. arXiv:1412.0342. Bibcode:2015MNRAS.447..246P. doi:10.1093/mnras/stu2419.
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