Chinese scientists discover a highly active repeating fast radio burst

This andated photo shows an aerial view of FAST. PHOTO XINHUA BEIJING Scientists have found a highly active repeating Fast Radio Burst, only the second example of its kind, hinting at the evolutionary picture of the mysterious cosmic events.

FRBs are the brightest millisecond-duration astronomical transients in radio bands with yet unknown origins. Less than five percent of them have ever been seen to repeat and only a few are persistently active.

Using the Five-Hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope FAST, an international team led by astronomers from the National Astronomical Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered and localized an active repeating fast radio burst called FRB 20190520 B in a metal-poor dwarf galaxy nearly three billion light-years from Earth.

Then the telescopes including the Very Large Array, the Palomar Telescope, the Keck Telescope, Subaru Telescope and Canada-France Hawaii Telescope continued the observations to confirm the FRB 20190520 B.

The scientists said that FRB 20190520 B appears to reside in a complex plasma environment similar to that in a super luminous supernova, suggesting that it may be a newborn. After the discovery of the first repeater FRB 20121102 A in 2016, it's the second example of a highly active FRB with repeating bursts and persistent radio emission between bursts coming from a compact region.

The researchers said there may be two different kinds of FRBs because of the differences between the two FRBs and all the others.

Candidate for the FRB sources are superdense neutron stars left over after a massive star explodes as a supernova or neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields, called magnetars.

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The astronomers said there may be two different mechanisms or that the objects producing them act differently at different stages of their evolution.

According to the paper's co-author, Li Di, with NAOC, we further postulate that FRB 20121102 A and FRB 20190520 B represent the initial stage of an evolving FRB population.

Li said that a coherent picture of the origin and evolution of FRBs is likely to emerge in a few years.

FAST was officially opened on March 31, 2021, and officially opened in January 2020 in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwest China's Guizhou province. It is believed to be the world's most sensitive radio telescope.