No Arabic abstract
The turbulence in the diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) plays an important role in various astrophysical processes across cosmic time, but it is very challenging to constrain its statistical properties both observationally and numerically. Via the statistical analysis of turbulence along different sightlines toward a population of fast radio bursts (FRBs), we demonstrate that FRBs provide a unique tool to probe the intergalactic turbulence. We measure the structure function (SF) of dispersion measures (DMs) of FRBs to study the multi-scale electron density fluctuations induced by the intergalactic turbulence. The SF has a large amplitude and a Kolmogorov power-law scaling with angular separations, showing large and correlated DM fluctuations over a range of length scales. Given that the DMs of FRBs are IGM dominated, our result tentatively suggests that the intergalactic turbulence has a Kolmogorov power spectrum and an outer scale on the order of $100$ Mpc.
The recently discovered fast radio bursts (FRBs), presumably of extra-galactic origin, have the potential to become a powerful probe of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We point out a few such potential applications. We provide expressions for the dispersion measure and rotation measure as a function of redshift, and we discuss the sensitivity of these measures to the HeII reionization and the IGM magnetic field. Finally we calculate the microlensing effect from an isolate, extragalctic stellar-mass compact object on the FRB spectrum. The time delays between the two lensing images will induce constructive and destructive interference, leaving a specific imprint on the spectra of FRBs. With a high all-sky rate, a large statistical sample of FRBs is expected to make these applications feasible.
The joint analysis of the Dispersion and Faraday Rotation Measure from distant, polarised Fast Radio Bursts may be used to put constraints on the origin and distribution of extragalactic magnetic fields on cosmological scales. While the combination of Dispersion and Faraday Rotation Measure can in principle give the average magnetic fields along the line-of-sight, in practice this method must be used with care because it strongly depends on the assumed magnetisation model on large cosmological scales. Our simulations show that the observation of Rotation Measures with $geq 1-10 ~rm rad/m^2$ in $sim 10^2$ Fast Radio Bursts will be able to discriminate between extreme scenarios for the origin of cosmic magnetic fields, independent of the exact distribution of sources with redshift. This represent a strong case for incoming (e.g. ALERT, CHIME) and future (e.g. with the Square Kilometer Array) radio polarisation surveys of the sky.
We investigate whether current data on the distribution of observed flux densities of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are consistent with a constant source density in Euclidean space. We use the number of FRBs detected in two surveys with different characteristics along with the observed signal-to-noise ratios of the detected FRBs in a formalism similar to a V/V_max-test to constrain the distribution of flux densities. We find consistency between the data and a Euclidean distribution. Any extension of this model is therefore not data-driven and needs to be motivated separately. As a byproduct we also obtain new improved limits for the FRB rate at 1.4 GHz, which had not been constrained in this way before.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright, unresolved, millisecond-duration flashes of radio emission originating from outside of the Milky Way. The source of these mysterious outbursts is unknown, but their high luminosity, high dispersion measure and short duration requires an extreme, high-energy, astrophysical process. The majority of FRBs have been discovered as single events which would require a chance coincidence for contemporaneous multiwavelength observations. However, two have been observed to repeat: FRB 121102 and the recently detected FRB 180814.J0422+73. These repeating FRBs have allowed for targeted observations by a number of different instruments, including VERITAS. We present the VERITAS FRB observing program and the results of these observations.
The precise localization (<1) of multiple fast radio bursts (FRBs) to z>0.1 galaxies has confirmed that the dispersion measures (DMs) of these enigmatic sources afford a new opportunity to probe the diffuse ionized gas around and in between galaxies. In this manuscript, we examine the signatures of gas in dark matter halos (aka halo gas) on DM observations in current and forthcoming FRB surveys. Combining constraints from observations of the high velocity clouds, OVII absorption, and the DM to the Large Magellanic Cloud with hydrostatic models of halo gas, we estimate that our Galactic halo will contribute ${rm DM}_{rm MW,halo} approx 50-80 rm pc/cm^{-3}$ from the Sun to 200 kpc independent of any contribution from the Galactic ISM. Extending analysis to the Local Group, we demonstrate that M31s halo will be easily detected by high-sample FRB surveys (e.g. CHIME) although signatures from a putative Local Group medium may compete. We then review current empirical constraints on halo gas in distant galaxies and discuss the implications for their DM contributions. We further examine the DM probability distribution function of a population of FRBs at z >> 0 using an updated halo mass function and new models for the halo density profile. Lastly, we illustrate the potential of FRB experiments for resolving the baryonic fraction of halos by analyzing simulated sightlines through the CASBaH survey. All of the code and data products of our analysis are available at https://github.com/FRBs.