FRB 20220912A is a repetitive high-speed radio burst discovered in 2022 that remained highly active for several months.Use recently updated one allen telescope arraySETI Institute astronomers recorded 35 bursts from 541 hours of follow-up observations over two months of the FRB 20220912A source and found that an interesting pattern had emerged.
Artist’s impression of FRB 110523 as it reaches Earth. The colors represent bursts arriving at different radio wavelengths, with longer wavelengths (red) arriving a few seconds after shorter wavelengths (blue). Image credit: Jingchuan Yu / Beijing Planetarium.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious and rarely detected bursts of energy that come from beyond the Milky Way.
These events have a duration of milliseconds and exhibit the characteristic dispersive sweep of radio pulsars.
They emit as much energy in one millisecond as the sun does in 10,000 years, but the physical phenomena that cause them are unknown.
More than 100 FRBs have been detected to date, but only some of them have been observed to replicate so far.
Like most repeating FRBs, each burst from FRB 20220912A drifted from higher to lower frequencies over time.
However, the center frequency of the bursts also showed a previously unseen drop, and when converted to audible sounds using xylophone sounds, it became clear that they sounded like cosmic slide whistles.
In this song, most of the highest notes are heard in the first few seconds, and most of the lowest notes are heard in the last few seconds, as if the xylophone player was repeatedly hitting the lowest available bars on the instrument. .
Astronomers believe that at least some FRBs are produced by neutron stars known as magnetars, while other theories point to binary neutron star collisions or white dwarf mergers.
Dynamic spectra, frequency-averaged pulse profiles, and time-averaged spectra of all bursts from FRB 20220912A detected using the Allen telescope array.Image credit: Shake other. /SETI Institute.
“This study is exciting because it provides both confirmation of known FRB properties and the discovery of several new properties,” said Dr. Sophia Sheikh, lead author of the study.
“We have narrowed down the source of FRBs to extreme objects, such as magnetars, but no existing model can explain all the properties observed so far.”
Dr. Sheikh and his colleagues made this discovery after 541 hours of observations using the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array.
They also tried to identify patterns in the timing between bursts, but found none. This further illustrates the unpredictable and mysterious nature of these powerful radio bursts.
Nevertheless, the latest research marks another step in the quest to unlock the secrets of FRBs, which generate as much energy in a thousandth of a second as the sun does in a year.
“It was great to be part of the first FRB study conducted using the Allen Telescope Array,” said Dr. Sheikh.
“This study proves that new telescopes with unique capabilities like the Allen Telescope Array can provide new angles on outstanding mysteries in FRB science.”
of the team paper will be published in Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices.
_____
Sophia Z. Sheikh other. 2023. Characterization of iterative FRB 20220912A using the Allen Telescope Array. MNRAS, in press. arXiv: 2312.07756
Source: www.sci.news
