On the Use of Fast Radio Burst Dispersion Measures as Distance Measures
  Fast radio bursts appear to be cosmological signals whose frequency-time
structure provides a dispersion measure. The dispersion measure is a
convolution of the cosmic distance element and the electron density, and
contains the possibility of using these events as new cosmological distance
measures. We explore the challenges of extracting the distance in a robust
manner, and give quantitative estimates for the systematics control needed for
fast radio bursts to become a competitive distance probe. The methodology can
also be applied to assessing their use for mapping electron density
fluctuations or helium reionization.
