Detection positions of the new CHIME/FRB repeating FRB sources. Credit: Andersen et al., 2019.

Using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope, astronomers have identified eight new repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources. The finding, reported in a paper published August 9 on arXiv.org, could shed new light on the origin and nature of these mysterious phenomena.

FRBs are intense bursts of radio emission lasting milliseconds and showcasing characteristic dispersion sweep of radio pulsars. The physical nature of these bursts is yet unknown, and astronomers consider a variety of explanations ranging from synchrotron maser emission from young magnetars in supernova remnants to cosmic string cusps.

The first FRB was discovered in 2007. Known as the Lorimer Burst, the bursts was a singular event such as a supernova. Five years later, the first repeating FRB was detected. Named FRB 121102, the source exhibits complex burst morphology, sub-burst downward frequency drifts, and also complex pulse phenomenology.

Although dozens of FRBs have been identified to date, only two of them were found to repeat their signals. These repeaters could be the key to resolving the mysteries of FRBs as astronomers anticipating the upcoming bursts can prepare extensive follow-up observational campaigns aimed at investigating such flashes in detail.

Now, a team of astronomers led by Bridget C. Andersen of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, reports the detection of eight new FRB repeaters, which could mean a breakthrough in studies of these flaring events.

"We report on the discovery of eight repeating FRB sources found using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope," the astronomers wrote in the paper.

The newly identified FRBs have dispersion measures ranging from 103.5 to 1,281 parsecs/cm3. For the two FRBs with low dispersion measure, the astronomers cannot exclude the possibility that they are galactic halo objects. Hence, multi-wavelength follow-up observations for these sources are proposed in order to put constraints on their location.

The study found that one of the eight new FRBs has a rotation measure of -115 rad/m2—much lower than that observed for FRB 121102. This allowed the astronomers to draw initial conclusions about the general properties of FRBs.

"This, and the absence of a comparably luminous persistent radio source in Sources 1 and 2 uncertainty regions, suggest not all repeaters share the environmental properties of FRB 121102," the paper reads.

Moreover, the researchers found that the repeating FRBs reported in the study generally have dispersion measures typical for the non-repeating FRBs so far identified with CHIME. However, they do show evidence of having larger burst widths than non-repeating bursts. This, according to the authors of the paper, could suggest different emission mechanisms in repeating and non-repeating sources.

The astronomers also found complex morphologies and downward-drifting sub-bursts in some of the eight new FRBs, what could indicate that such phenomenology is not necessarily observed in repeating sources.

In concluding remarks, the scientists underlined the significance of their discovery, noting that it represents an important progress in the ongoing hunt for FRBs. They added that the new sources present a great opportunity for follow-up studies, what could disentangle the mysterious nature of FRBs.

Explore further Canada's CHIME telescope detects second repeating fast radio burst

More information: B. C. Andersen et al. CHIME/FRB Detection of Eight New Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources,arXiv:1908.03507v2 [astro-ph.HE]: B. C. Andersen et al. CHIME/FRB Detection of Eight New Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources,arXiv:1908.03507v2 [astro-ph.HE]: arxiv.org/abs/1908.03507

© 2019 Science X Network </s> The mysterious radio signals are so-called Fast Radio Bursts or FRBs from some unknown source in the cosmos. Thanks to Canada’s CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia, astronomers have identified eight of these radio bursts on Earth. FRBs are incredibly short blasts of radio waves that only last milliseconds at a time. First discovered in 2007, FRBs have been a source of confusion among the scientific community.

Astronomers are not certain where FRBs come from but each new detection brings us closer to solving the mystery. A new study, pre-published on the archive website arXiv.org, revealed eight new repeating FRBs detected in Canada. The study reads: “We report on the discovery of eight repeating Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) sources found using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope.” McGill Space Institute PhD student Pragya Chawla, who co-authored the paper, said: “Discovering eight sources like this is so important because it says we have a lot more repeating FRBs and can figure out the environments and the galaxies these FRBs are located in if we follow them up with other telescopes.” READ MORE: Are bizarre FRBs evidence of alien life?

FRBs are a fairly recent discovery and remain one of the biggest unknowns of the universe. Scientists have described these signals as being 1,000 times weaker than a mobile phone found on the surface of the Moon.

The first sign of an FRB was found in 2007, hidden in a 2001 data set collected by the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Since the discovery, astronomers have slightly expanded their understanding of FRBs by learning some of the signals repeat. Victoria Kaspi, an astrophysicist at McGill University, told CBC: “The first biggest conclusion is that this is not an anomalous phenomenon. This is for real. “It just takes time and patience to find them. And two, it offers the opportunity to localise them, and that’s huge in the FRB field.” READ MORE: Cosmic mystery of 'fast radio bursts' from space baffles astronomers

Could FRBs be signals from alien civilisations? There has been a lot of heated discussion around the origin of FRBs. Professor Abraham Loeb from the University of Harvard told Express.co.uk in July, an extraterrestrial origin cannot be discounted. He said: “We still have no new clue on whether the origin is artificial or natural. “The origin of FRBs is still a mystery. The data at hand is not sufficient to reveal the identity of their sources.” Most astronomers, however, believe FRBs are created by large-scale astronomical phenomena. READ MORE: What will actually happen when NASA makes contact? </s> The CHIME radio telescope in Canada has spotted repeated fast radio bursts coming from the same region in space.

For the second time, astronomers have detected fast radio bursts (FRBs) coming from the exact same region in space outside of the Milky Way, which makes this the first time that they have spotted more than one set of these ubiquitous radio waves in the same location.

As ScienceAlert report, even when these fast radio bursts are detected, they are normally never seen again. And as scientists are still not certain what these FRBs really are, this makes things all the more baffling.

Astrophysicist Ingrid Stairs, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, explained that with the new discovery of a second set of repeated FRBs, scientists will have much more information at their disposal about this mysterious phenomenon.

“Until now, there was only one known repeating FRB. Knowing that there is another suggests that there could be more out there. And with more repeaters and more sources available for study, we may be able to understand these cosmic puzzles – where they’re from and what causes them.”

The fast radio bursts that were recently detected are officially called FRB 180814.J0422+73, and back in August 2018 these FRBs were observed repeating themselves six times, after they were first spotted by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment radio telescope (CHIME).

When looking at both new and repeated FRBs, the CHIME radio telescope has picked up an astonishing 13 new fast radio bursts and, even better, these observations were only test ones for this particular telescope. Which means that as it wasn’t operating at maximum capacity, in the future when it is, it is very possible that even more FRBs will be detected coming from the same area.

The first repeating fast radio bursts that astronomers originally picked up were found to emanate from FRB 122201, which is located three billion light-years away from Earth. However, this is pretty much all scientists know with much certainty about this signal right now.

FRB 180814.J0422+73, by contrast, is much closer to Earth, although these repeated signals were still found to be coming from another galaxy 1.5 billion light-years away from the Milky Way.

Physicist Arun Naidu, from McGill University in Canada, has noted, “Whatever the source of these radio waves is, it’s interesting to see how wide a range of frequencies it can produce. There are some models where intrinsically the source can’t produce anything below a certain frequency.”

Until CHIME or other radio telescopes pick up further FRBs, the two new studies which have just been published about the repeating fast radio bursts can be read here and here in Nature. </s> The discovery of the extragalactic signal is among the first, eagerly awaited results from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a revolutionary radio telescope inaugurated in late 2017 by a collaboration of scientists from the University of British Columbia, McGill University, University of Toronto, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the National Research Council of Canada.

In a resounding endorsement of the novel telescope's capabilities, the repeating FRB was one of a total of 13 bursts detected over a period of just three weeks during the summer of 2018, while CHIME was in its pre-commissioning phase and running at only a fraction of its full capacity. Additional bursts from the repeating FRB were detected in following weeks by the telescope, which is located in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.

Discovery of second repeating FRB suggests more exist

Of the more than 60 FRBs observed to date, repeating bursts from a single source had been found only once before—a discovery made by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 2015.

"Until now, there was only one known repeating FRB. Knowing that there is another suggests that there could be more out there. And with more repeaters and more sources available for study, we may be able to understand these cosmic puzzles—where they're from and what causes them," said Ingrid Stairs, a member of the CHIME team and an astrophysicist at UBC.

Before CHIME began to gather data, some scientists wondered if the range of radio frequencies the telescope had been designed to detect would be too low to pick up fast radio bursts. Most of the FRBs previously detected had been found at frequencies near 1400 MHz, well above the Canadian telescope's range of 400 MHz to 800 MHz.

The CHIME team's results—published January 9 in two papers in Nature and presented the same day at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle—settled these doubts, with the majority of the 13 bursts being recorded well down to the lowest frequencies in CHIME's range. In some of the 13 cases, the signal at the lower end of the band was so bright that it seems likely other FRBs will be detected at frequencies even lower than CHIME's minimum of 400 MHz.

FRB sources likely to be in 'special places' within galaxies

The majority of the 13 FRBs detected showed signs of "scattering," a phenomenon that reveals information about the environment surrounding a source of radio waves. The amount of scattering observed by the CHIME team led them to conclude that the sources of FRBs are powerful astrophysical objects more likely to be in locations with special characteristics.

"That could mean in some sort of dense clump like a supernova remnant," says team member Cherry Ng, an astronomer at the University of Toronto. "Or near the central black hole in a galaxy. But it has to be in some special place to give us all the scattering that we see."

A new clue to the puzzle

Ever since FRBs were first detected, scientists have been piecing together the signals' observed characteristics to come up with models that might explain the sources of the mysterious bursts and provide some idea of the environments in which they occur. The detection by CHIME of FRBs at lower frequencies means some of these theories will need to be reconsidered.

"Whatever the source of these radio waves is, it's interesting to see how wide a range of frequencies it can produce. There are some models where intrinsically the source can't produce anything below a certain frequency," says team member Arun Naidu of McGill University.

"[We now know] the sources can produce low-frequency radio waves and those low-frequency waves can escape their environment, and are not too scattered to be detected by the time they reach the Earth. That tells us something about the environments and the sources. We haven't solved the problem, but it's several more pieces in the puzzle," says Tom Landecker, a CHIME team member from the National Research Council of Canada.

Explore further: New Canadian radio telescope is detecting fast radio bursts

More information: Observations of fast radio bursts at frequencies down to 400 megahertz, Nature (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0867-7 </s> Astronomers identified eight new repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources using Canada’s CHIME telescope.

The findings, led by Bridget Andersen of McGill University, could mean a breakthrough in the study of these cosmic events.

Inaugurated in 2017, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) interferometric radio telescope’s primary goals are to improve knowledge of dark energy and detect extragalactic FRBs—brief, bright flashes of radio waves that last a few milliseconds.

The astrophysical mysteries are thought to originate from far outside our Milky Way, but their source remains unclear.

Since their discovery more than a decade ago, 60-plus bursts, each named for its date of detection, have been observed by five telescopes worldwide.

Scientists in January announced the second repeating fast radio burst ever recorded—one of a total 13 bursts detected over three weeks last summer, when CHIME was still in its pre-commissioning phase, running at only a fraction of its full capacity.

Repeaters—like the eight found by Andersen & Co.—could be the key to understanding the origin and nature of FRBs.

A fast radio burst leaves a distant galaxy and travels to Earth over billions of years, occasionally passing through a cloud of gas during its journey. Each time hot gas (or plasma) is encountered, the different wavelengths that make up a burst are slowed by different amounts.

Short (purple) radio waves, for example, arrive at a terrestrial telescope before long (red) ones.

This is known as dispersion.

The amount of dispersion informs how much matter the bursts have travelled through.

So far, repeating and non-repeating FRBs exhibit no difference in dispersion. They do, however, show evidence of having larger burst widths, suggesting different emission mechanisms in their sources.

Additional observations are needed before anyone can be sure from where (and who/what) these bursts are coming.
• None Study: Moon Is 100M Years Older Than We Thought
• None Rare Glimpse of Dying Star Confirms Prediction of Our Sun’s Fate </s> Weird blasts from space called fast radio bursts are some of the most mysterious phenomena in the universe, and now astronomers have spotted eight new and particularly unusual ones, including one that may be the closest we’ve ever seen.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are flashes of radio waves that come from distant space and last just a few milliseconds. Many hypotheses have been put forward about what may be causing them, but none of them is a perfect fit.

What makes that even more difficult is that there seem to be two types of FRBs: bursts that happen just once, and bursts that repeat many times from the same spot in space. Up until now, we had only detected two so-called repeaters, but the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) has found eight more.

Finding repeaters is important because they are much easier to study than bursts that only occur once. “Repeaters are nice because you can follow them up and observe the source for a long time and see if there are any changes, which can give us clues about what the emission mechanism could be,” says CHIME team member Shriharsh Tendulkar at McGill University in Montreal.

That’s why the first repeater, FRB 121102, was also the first FRB that we tracked back to its home galaxy. Most of the ideas we have to explain repeaters are based on FRB 121102, but these new ones seem to be different. Their radio waves do not show signs of being scrambled by a turbulent environment like the first repeater. Neither do any of them seem to sit in the same spot, as FRB 121102 did.

“This demonstrates that there is a vast diversity even in what the repeaters are,” says Tendulkar. “Maybe some of them are older, some of them have stronger magnetic fields, they’re in different environments.” It has been suggested that repeaters and non-repeaters may have different origins, but maybe there are a multitude of ways to produce FRBs instead of just two.

These new FRBs seem like they will be particularly useful as astronomers try to unravel that mystery. One of them, which CHIME saw repeating ten times over the course of four months, appears to be the closest FRB we’ve ever spotted.

“You want to be able to characterize the galaxy and pinpoint exactly where in the galaxy these bursts are coming from, and that’s impossible if the galaxy is halfway across the universe” says Gregg Hallinan at the California Institute of Technology. “It’s way easier if it’s right in our backyard.”

If we can tell exactly where FRB blasts are coming from, that helps narrow down the field of possibilities as to what is causing them. For example, we expect highly magnetised neutron stars, which are one of the leading theories, to mainly exist in star-forming regions in relatively young galaxies.

“Getting a precise location is really the future of the FRB science game,” says Hallinan. Teams have already started tracking down the home galaxies of CHIME’s new repeaters. </s> Astronomers are more than a little excited with the second ever detection of a repeating fast radio burst in deep space.

Nothing intrigues an astronomer more than a deep space mystery, and now a team of 13 researchers from Canada has stumbled on one of the biggest mysteries around.

The University of British Columbia team using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope revealed the discovery of a repeating fast radio burst (FRB) – whereby incredible amounts of energy are emitted for just a few milliseconds.

Containing the power of approximately 500m suns, the burst is highly significant because it is only the second repeating one ever discovered, the first being discovered by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 2012.

Publishing its findings to two different papers in Nature (here and here), the team said this latest repeating FRB was one of 13 new bursts detected in the space of just two weeks in the summer of 2018. While most FRBs have been spotted at wavelengths of a few centimetres, the latest FRBs were detected at wavelengths of nearly a metre.

Unlike typical FRBs that come and go, the discovery of a repeating FRB is vital to increasing our understanding of them, as we are able to train our radio telescopes towards them to study them further. In the meantime, the researchers believe they may be able to find 1,000 more FRBs by the end of the year.

“[We now know] the sources can produce low-frequency radio waves and those low-frequency waves can escape their environment, and are not too scattered to be detected by the time they reach the Earth,” said Tom Landecker of the CHIME team. “That tells us something about the environments and the sources. We haven’t solved the problem, but it’s several more pieces in the puzzle.”

Because of their intensity in energy and mysterious origins, claims that they could be alien in design continue to be suggested. While quite unlikely, an intense beam of light reaching Earth from deep space sounds similar to a recent suggestion from MIT researchers regarding contact with distant civilisations.

The proposal put forward by James Clark was that if a high-powered laser up to 2MW in power was focused through a 30- to 45-metre telescope, it would produce a beam powerful enough to stand out from the intensity of the sun. </s> Scientists have detected the second repeating fast radio burst (FRB) ever recorded, a discovery that may help determine the origin of these mysterious signals which have been linked with advanced alien technology in the past.

Some scientists also believe that FRBs emanate from powerful astrophysical phenomena billions of light years away. However, the source of these signals, originating from far outside our Milky Way galaxy, are not well understood.

In 2017, Harvard scientists have speculated that these FRBs might be leakage from planet-sized transmitters powering interstellar probes in distant galaxies. They said that since a natural origin can not be identified, an artificial or alien origin can be contemplated.

“Whatever the source of these radio waves is, it’s interesting to see how wide a range of frequencies it can produce. There are some models where intrinsically the source can’t produce anything below a certain frequency,” said Arun Naidu of McGill University in Canada, who was part of the team that detected the signal.

The discovery of the extragalactic signal is among the first, eagerly awaited results from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a radio telescope inaugurated in 2017.

“Until now, there was only one known repeating FRB. Knowing that there is another suggests that there could be more out there,” said Ingrid Stairs, a member of the CHIME team.

“And with more repeaters and more sources available for study, we may be able to understand these cosmic puzzles -- where they’re from and what causes them,” said Stairs, an astrophysicist at University of British Columbia in Canada.

The repeating FRB was one of a total of 13 bursts detected over a period of just three weeks during the summer of 2018, while CHIME was in its pre-commissioning phase and running at only a fraction of its full capacity.

Additional bursts from the repeating FRB were detected in following weeks by the telescope, which is located in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley.

Of the more than 60 FRBs observed to date, repeating bursts from a single source had been found only once before -- a discovery made by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 2015.

The majority of the 13 FRBs detected showed signs of “scattering,” a phenomenon that reveals information about the environment surrounding a source of radio waves.

The amount of scattering observed by the CHIME team led them to conclude that the sources of FRBs are powerful astrophysical objects more likely to be in locations with special characteristics.

“That could mean in some sort of dense clump like a supernova remnant,” said Cherry Ng, an astronomer at the University of Toronto in Canada. “Or near the central black hole in a galaxy. But it has to be in some special place to give us all the scattering that we see,” said Ng.

Ever since FRBs were first detected, scientists have been piecing together the signals’ observed characteristics to come up with models that might explain the sources of the mysterious bursts and provide some idea of the environments in which they occur.

The detection by CHIME of FRBs at lower frequencies means some of these theories will need to be reconsidered.
Astronomers led by a team from McGill University in Montreal announce the detection of eight new repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope. The astronomers report they also found complex morphologies and downward-drifting sub-bursts in some of the eight new FRBs.