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BURSTT aims to reveal the origin of mysterious fast radio bursts
Mysterious fast radio bursts
Mysterious fast radio bursts
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are mysterious, millisecond flashes of radio light of unknown origin from far outside the Milky Way. The nature of FRBs, including their emission mechanism and environment, is one of the most perplexing enigmas in astrophysics and a major front for research. To deepen the mystery, a subset of FRB sources emits multiple bursts, the so-called “repeaters,” while for most FRBs only one burst is observed. Their all-sky rate of ~1,000 per day suggests the phenomenon is ubiquitous.
Progenitor candidates
Progenitor candidates
There is no consensus about the FRB origin despite a large number of recent detections. Understanding these enigmatic new objects remains one of the most important missions of astronomy. Diverse progenitors have been proposed as the origin of FRBs, including white dwarfs, old neutron stars, old black holes, magnetars, young pulsars, supernovae remnants, and active supermassive black holes.
Why unknown?
Why unknown?
Previous observatories have been hampered by the following four problems
Lack of localization capability
Poor field of view
Missing FRBs due to narrow time windows
Mismatch with multi-messengers
BURSTT adresses these four challenges
BURSTT adresses these four challenges
BURSTT overcomes the four challenges with the following advantages
Accurate localization
Extremely wide field of view
Complete census of nearby FRBs with a long time window
Synergy with multi-messengers
Science cases
Science cases
Progenitor identification
Progenitor identification
FRB statistics
FRB statistics
Multi-wavelength/messenger counterparts
Multi-wavelength/messenger counterparts
Host galaxies
Host galaxies
Scintillation
Scintillation
Polarization
Polarization
Future BURSTT-2048 sciences
Future BURSTT-2048 sciences
Once the origin of FRBs is understood, FRBs can be employed as cosmic probes to address key science challenges
Dark energy
Dark energy
Dark matter
Dark matter
Missing baryon problem
Missing baryon problem
Cosmic reionization
Cosmic reionization
Cosmic expansion
Cosmic expansion
Testing General Relativity
Testing General Relativity
Image credits
Image credits
The first image: Chalmers University of Technology/Daniëlle Futselaar, artsource.nl. © Institute of Physics (the “Institute”) and IOP Publishing Limited 2019. https://physicsworld.com/a/source-of-fast-radio-bursts-surprises-astronomers/
The second image: Chalmers University of Technology/Daniëlle Futselaar, artsource.nl
The third image: Tetsuya Hashimoto, Mark Garlick, B.Kiziltan/T. Karacan, Tetsuya Hashimoto, Nature astronomy, NASA, and MIT Kavli.
The fourth and eighth images: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Pacaud, D. Coe
The fifth and ninth images: Milky Way Panorama. https://sos.noaa.gov/catalog/datasets/milky-way-panorama/
The sixth and tenth images: BURSTT
The seventh image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
The 11th image: National Science Foundation/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet
The 12th image: Tetsuya Hashimoto
The 13th image: Tetsuya Hashimoto et al., 2022, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 511, Issue 2, pp.1961-1976
The 14th image: IceCube Neutrino Observatory
The 15th image: Gemini Observatory / NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory / AURA
The 16th image: Ravi et al., 2016, Science, Volume 354, Issue 6317, pp. 1249-1252
The 17th image: Cho et al., 2020, the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 891, Issue 2, id.L38, 10 pp.
The 18th image: Astronomy/Roen Kelly
The 19th image: ScienceAlert/sakkmesterke/iStock
The 20th image: Illustris Collaboration
The 21st image: Loeb A., 2006, SciAm, 295,46
The 22nd image: Eugenio Bianchi, Carlo Rovelli & Rocky Kolb 2010, Nature, 446,321-322, https://www.nature.com/articles/466321a
The 23rd image: Albert Einstein, Associated Press
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