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19-01-2018
A new twist in the story of the repeating FRB
| Submitter: | Jason Hessels |
| Description: | The Arecibo-discovered FRB 121102 is so far the only Fast Radio Burst (FRB) source known to repeat. It has recently been localized using the VLA and subsequently the EVN to a dwarf host galaxy at redshift z = 0.19, where it is co-located with a persistent radio source and an intense star-forming region. Given that the radio bursts apparently have no multi-wavelength counterparts, we were strongly motivated to investigate the properties of the radio waves at higher radio frequencies - in the hopes of finding more clues as to the nature of this enigmatic source. Using high-frequency (4-8GHz) observations with Arecibo and the Green Bank Telescope, we have recently discovered that the radio bursts from FRB 121102 are highly linearly polarized and show an extreme Faraday rotation (about 146000 rad/m2 in the source's reference frame; about 500x larger than measured in any other FRB to date). Furthermore, one of the bursts we detected has a very short duration of only about 30 microseconds, thereby strongly constraining the size of the emission region and suggesting a neutron star origin for the bursts (as also previously suspected). The extreme Faraday rotation implies an extreme magneto-ionic environment for the source, which we hypothesize could be in the immediate environment of an accreting massive black hole or within a surrounding nebula and supernova remnant. On Jan 10th, 2018 we presented these results at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, during a dedicated press conference. This picture shows the presenters in front of a poster of the most recent cover of Nature, in which the results appear. This beautiful cover artwork was made by Danielle Futselaar. Presenters from left to right: Andrew Seymour (USRA, Arecibo), Jason Hessels (ASTRON / UvA), Betsey Adams (ASTRON / Kapteyn), Daniele Michilli (ASTRON / UvA) and Vishal Gajjar (Breakthrough Listen, Berkeley). |
| Copyright: | JWTH/ASTRON |
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