FAST RADIO BURST

Nandini Chatterjee

Credit: M. Weiss CfA

WHAT ARE FAST RADIO BURSTS?• Powerful flashes of light known as fast radio burst

(FRBs)• Radio emissions / radio brightness• Lasts about a second, disappears, and

never repeats• Only one of the sources have been

localized so far• First described in 2007

• FRB are named ‘FRB YYMMDD’• Example: FRB 010724• Found more than 2 dozen

Credit: Jingchuan Yu, Beijing Planetarium

WHAT CAUSES FAST RADIO BURSTS?

• Hypothesis 1: Explosions driven by young, fast-spinning neuron stars with strong magnetic fields

• Hypothesis 2: Explosion of a star• Hypothesis 3: Black holes combining together

can create radio flashes• Hypothesis 4: Generated by intelligent aliens• Hypothesis 5: Blitzar

Credit: Space.com

BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN• Announced in July 2015

• Goal: Looking for signs of intelligent alien life• Scans the nearest million stars in the

Milky Way and star in 100 other galaxies

• Cost: $100 million project

• Parkes Telescope in Australia is also involved Credit: National Radio Astronomy

ObservatoryCredit: Commonwealth Scientific and

Industrial Research Organization

FRB 121102

• A dwarf galaxy discovered Nov. 2, 2012• 3 billion light years away from Earth• Green Bank Telescope detected 15 new

pulses high of frequency (August 26)• Brightest emission at around 7 GHz

• Source is newly active• Measurement of the properties of these

bursts

Credit: Breakthrough Listen/UC Berkeley

Credit: ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy

WHICH HYPOTHESES HAVE BEEN RULED OUT?

• The supermassive black hole hypothesis• The intelligent aliens hypothesis• The Blitzar hypothesis

Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

EARLIER OCCURRENCES

August 24, 2001: 5-millisecond burst

1Smallest wavelength dispersion burst

2Largest wavelength dispersion burst

3FRB detected 6 billion light years away

4

WHY IS FRB IMPORTANT?

• Sort out source which are unknown

• Increase the number that we discover• Approximately 25,000 flashes each day

• Hope to discover at least 10 flashes per day

• Learn about the universe’s evolution

• Better understanding of the “reionization”

• Universe Mapping

• Study the magnetic fields

• Study turbulence & the materials between Earth and the sources

Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

CITATIONS• Billings, Lee. “A Brilliant Flash, Then Nothing: New.” Scientific American, 9 July 2013, www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-brilliant-flash-then-

nothing-new-fast-radio-bursts-mystify-astronomers/.

• Drake, Nadia. “Storm of Strange Radio Bursts Emerges From Deep Space.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 1 Sept. 2017, news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/radio-bursts-galaxy-space-breakthrough-listen-science/.

• “Fast Radio Bursts May Be Firing Off Every Second.” Www.cfa.harvard.edu/, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), 21 Sept. 2017, www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2017-28.

• “Green Bank Telescope Joins ‘Breakthrough Listen.’” National Radio Astronomy Observatory, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 20 July 2015, public.nrao.edu/news/gbt-breakthrough-listen/.

• Kohler, Susanna. “A New Clue in the Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts.” AAS Nova, 28 June 2017, aasnova.org/2017/06/28/a-new-clue-in-the-mystery-of-fast-radio-bursts/.

• Sanders, Robert. “Distant Galaxy Sends out 15 High-Energy Radio Bursts.” Berkeley News, 1 Sept. 2017, news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/30/distant-galaxy-sends-out-15-high-energy-radio-bursts/.

• Spaleta, Steve. “Mysterious 'Fast Radio Burst' Source Detected.” Space.com, Space.com, 2 Dec. 2016, www.space.com/31250-mysterious-fast-radio-burst-source-detected-video.html.

• Wall, Mike. “Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft?”Space.com, Space.com, 9 Mar. 2017, www.space.com/35996-fast-radio-bursts-powering-alien-spacecraft.html.

• Wall, Mike. “$100 Million E.T. Hunt Spots 15 Mysterious Light Flashes.” Space.com, Space.com, 30 Aug. 2017, www.space.com/37992-fast-radio-bursts-breakthrough-listen.html.

• Wall, Mike. “Fast Radio Bursts Flash throughout the Cosmos.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 26 Sept. 2017, www.scientificamerican.com/article/fast-radio-bursts-flash-throughout-the-cosmos/.

• “Welcome to the CSIRO Parkes Observatory.” CSIRO Parkes Observatory | Australia Telescope National Facility, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/.