WANG Pei from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) caught an extreme episode of cosmic explosions from Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 121102, using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST).
A total of 1,652 independent bursts were detected within 47 days starting August 29, 2019 (UT).
Such a burst set allows for the determination, for the first time, of the characteristic energy and energy distribution of any FRB, thus shedding light on the central engine powering FRBs.
These results were published in Nature on October 13, 2021.These cosmic explosions can be as short as one-thousandth of a second while producing one year’s worth of the Sun’s total energy output.
The burst rate distribution of isotropic equivalent energy at 1.25 GHz for FRB 121102.Between August 29 and October 29, 2019, 1,652 independent burst events were detected in a total of 59.5 hours.
A “river” of bursts from a galaxy as recorded by the FAST telescope.The burst energy distribution can be adequately described as bimodal, namely, a log-normal function for low E bursts and a Lorentz function for high E bursts, implying that weaker FRB pulses may be stochastic in nature and the stronger ones involve a ratio between two independent quantities.
“The total energy of this burst set already adds up to 3.8% of what is available from a magnetar and no periodicity was found between 1 ms and 1000 s, both of which severely constrains the possibility that FRB 121102 comes from an isolated compact object,” said Dr.More than six new FRBs have been discovered through the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS, https://crafts.bao.ac.cn/), including one new 121102-like repeater.This project has been part of a long-running collaboration since the commissioning phase of the FAST telescope.Reference: “A bimodal burst energy distribution of a repeating fast radio burst source” by D.Zhu, 13 October 2021, Nature.
October 13, 2021.
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