Astronomers Discover Magnetic Field Changes in Fast Radio Bursts from Distant Galaxy

Latest News, International – An international group of astronomers conducted a 17-month study of fast radio bursts (fast radio burst/FRB) returns from a distant galaxy, revealing that the burst wave altered its magnetic field twice, which provides clues to its origin.

The magnetic changes likely indicate that the source of the FRB is orbiting within a binary star system, and the companion star may be a black hole or massive star, the team of scientists said in a paper published in the journal Science on Friday (12/5/23), as reported by Xinhua News.

FRBs, the brightest bursts of radio waves in the universe, are transients of very short duration, only a few milliseconds. However, the certainty of its origin is unclear and is still the subject of ongoing research.

Scientists from the National Astronomical Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with their counterparts from other countries, targeted a repeating FRB codenamed FRB 20190520B, which was discovered by the FAST telescope, or “Chinese Eye of the Sky”.

The team monitored the FRB using telescopes located in Australia and the United States for 17 months, detecting hundreds of bursts of radio waves.

They found that Faraday’s measure of rotation, an indicator of the strength of its magnetic field, varies widely and changes direction twice.

Feng Yi, a team member from the research institute Zhejiang Lab, said, “This shows that there is an extreme magnetic field change around it, which means FRB 20190520B is likely in a binary star system, and the companion star of the binary system is likely a black hole or a star-sized massive.”

“Understanding such changes in the magnetized environment around FRBs is an important step forward and will hopefully help clarify their origins,” Feng said.