No Arabic abstract
The pulse morphology of fast radio bursts (FRBs) provides key information in both understanding progenitor physics and the plasma medium through which the burst propagates. We present a study of the profiles of 33 bright FRBs detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. We identify seven FRBs with measureable intrinsic pulse widths, including two FRBs that have been seen to repeat. In our modest sample we see no evidence for bimodality in the pulse width distribution. We also identify five FRBs with evidence of millisecond timescale pulse broadening caused by scattering in inhomogeneous plasma. We find no evidence for a relationship between pulse broadening and extragalactic dispersion measure. The scattering could be either caused by extreme turbulence in the host galaxy or chance propagation through foreground galaxies. With future high time resolution observations and detailed study of host galaxy properties we may be able to probe line-of-sight turbulence on gigaparsec scales.
Multi-peaked features appear on the integrated pulse profiles of fast radio burst observed below 2.5 GHz and the instantaneous spectrum of many bursts observed between 4 and 8 GHz. The mechanism of pulse or spectrum shaping has attracted little attention. Here we show that these interference-like pulse profiles are mostly the instantaneous spectra near the source regions of fast radio bursts. The corresponding instantaneous spectra are coincident to the spectrum from a single electron passing through a tapered undulator. The multi-peaked spectrum observed between 4 and 8 GHz can also be explained consistently by this type of spectrum. The spectrum is invisible unless the particles in the radiation beam are bunched. The bunching effect is probably due to the acceleration of particles in the plasma wakefield.
In 2007, a very bright radio pulse was identified in the archival data of the Parkes Telescope in Australia, marking the beginning of a new research branch in astrophysics. In 2013, this kind of millisecond bursts with extremely high brightness temperature takes a unified name, fast radio burst (FRB). Over the first few years, FRBs seemed very mysterious because the sample of known events was limited. With the improvement of instruments over the last five years, hundreds of new FRBs have been discovered. The field is now undergoing a revolution and understanding of FRB has rapidly increased as new observational data increasingly accumulates. In this review, we will summarize the basic physics of FRBs and discuss the current research progress in this area. We have tried to cover a wide range of FRB topics, including the observational property, propagation effect, population study, radiation mechanism, source model, and application in cosmology. A framework based on the latest observational facts is now under construction. In the near future, this exciting field is expected to make significant breakthroughs.
Combining high time and frequency resolution full-polarisation spectra of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) with knowledge of their host galaxy properties provides an opportunity to study both the emission mechanism generating them and the impact of their propagation through their local environment, host galaxy, and the intergalactic medium. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope has provided the first ensemble of bursts with this information. In this paper, we present the high time and spectral resolution, full polarisation observations of five localised FRBs to complement the results published for the previously studied ASKAP FRB~181112. We find that every FRB is highly polarised, with polarisation fractions ranging from 80 -- 100%, and that they are generally dominated by linear polarisation. While some FRBs in our sample exhibit properties associated with an emerging archetype (i.e., repeating or apparently non-repeating), others exhibit characteristic features of both, implying the existence of a continuum of FRB properties. When examined at high time resolution, we find that all FRBs in our sample have evidence for multiple sub-components and for scattering at a level greater than expected from the Milky Way. We find no correlation between the diverse range of FRB properties (e.g., scattering time, intrinsic width, and rotation measure) and any global property of their host galaxy. The most heavily scattered bursts reside in the outskirts of their host galaxies, suggesting that the source-local environment rather than the host interstellar medium is likely the dominant origin of the scattering in our sample.
The detection of six Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) has recently been reported. FRBs are short duration ($sim$ 1 ms), highly dispersed radio pulses from astronomical sources. The physical interpretation for the FRBs remains unclear but is thought to involve highly compact objects at cosmological distance. It has been suggested that a fraction of FRBs could be physically associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Recent radio observations of GRBs have reported the detection of two highly dispersed short duration radio pulses using a 12 m radio telescope at 1.4 GHz. Motivated by this result, we have performed a systematic and sensitive search for FRBs associated with GRBs. We have observed five GRBs at 2.3 GHz using a 26 m radio telescope located at the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory, Hobart. The radio telescope was automated to rapidly respond to Gamma-ray Coordination Network notifications from the Swift satellite and slew to the GRB position within $sim$ 140 s. The data were searched for pulses up to 5000 pc $rm cm^{-3}$ in dispersion measure and pulse widths ranging from 640 $rm mu$s to 25.60 ms. We did not detect any events $rm geq 6 sigma$. An in-depth statistical analysis of our data shows that events detected above $rm 5 sigma$ are consistent with thermal noise fluctuations only. A joint analysis of our data with previous experiments shows that previously claimed detections of FRBs from GRBs are unlikely to be astrophysical. Our results are in line with the lack of consistency noted between the recently presented FRB event rates and GRB event rates.
We summarize our understanding of millisecond radio bursts from an extragalactic population of sources. FRBs occur at an extraordinary rate, thousands per day over the entire sky with radiation energy densities at the source about ten billion times larger than those from Galactic pulsars. We survey FRB phenomenology, source models and host galaxies, coherent radiation models, and the role of plasma propagation effects in burst detection. The FRB field is guaranteed to be exciting: new telescopes will expand the sample from the current ~80 unique burst sources (and a few secure localizations and redshifts) to thousands, with burst localizations that enable host-galaxy redshifts emerging directly from interferometric surveys. * FRBs are now established as an extragalactic phenomenon. * Only a few sources are known to repeat. Despite the failure to redetect other FRBs, they are not inconsistent with all being repeaters. * FRB sources may be new, exotic kinds of objects or known types in extreme circumstances. Many inventive models exist, ranging from alien spacecraft to cosmic strings but those concerning compact objects and supermassive black holes have gained the most attention. A rapidly rotating magnetar is a promising explanation for FRB 121102 along with the persistent source associated with it, but alternative source models are not ruled out for it or other FRBs. * FRBs are powerful tracers of circumsource environments, `missing baryons in the IGM, and dark matter. * The relative contributions of host galaxies and the IGM to propagation effects have yet to be disentangled, so dispersion measure distances have large uncertainties.