Fast radio bursts: the last sign of supramassive neutron stars

By Heino Falcke, Luciano Rezzolla Radboud University Nijmegen, Astron, M. Bonn, Aei Potsdam, Goethe-University Frankfurt. 2013

334 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Context. Several fast radio bursts have been discovered recently, showing a bright, highly dispersed millisecond radio pulse. The pulses do not repeat and are not associated with a known pulsar or gamma-ray burst. The high dispersion suggests sources at cosmological distances, hence implying an extremely high radio luminosity, far larger than the power of single pulses from a pulsar. Aims. We suggest that a fast radio burst represents the final signal of a supramassive rotating neutron star that collapses to a black hole due to magnetic braking. The neutron star is initially above the critical mass for non-rotating models and is supported by rapid rotation. As magnetic braking constantly reduces the spin, the neutron star will suddenly collapse to a black hole several thousand to million years after its birth. Methods. We discuss several formation scenarios for supramassive neutron stars and estimate the possible observational signatures making use of the results of recent numerical general-relativistic calculations. Results. While the collapse will hide the stellar surface behind an event horizon, the magnetic-field lines will snap violently. This can turn an almost ordinary pulsar into a bright radio “blitzar”: Accelerated electrons from the travelling magnetic shock dissipate a significant fraction of the magnetosphere and produce a massive radio burst that is observable out to z > 0:7. Only a few percent of the neutron stars needs to be supramassive in order to explain the observed rate. Conclusions. We suggest the intriguing possibility that fast radio bursts might trace the solitary and almost silent formation of stellar mass black holes at high redshifts. These bursts could be an electromagnetic complement to gravitational-wave emission and reveal a new formation and evolutionary channel for black holes and neutron stars that are not seen as gamma-ray bursts. If supramassive neutron stars are formed at birth and not by accretion, radio observations of these bursts could trace the core-collapse supernova rate throughout the universe.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/15ef2126608a7a146c7f2c704fd31aef1b2727ce

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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4. Michael Kramer
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Citations in the corpus

• A FAST RADIO BURST IN THE DIRECTION OF THE CARINA DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXY (2014, background): “A menagerie of exotic extragalactic sources of FRBs have been theorized, including the collapse of gravitationally unstable magnetars to black holes (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014), giant magnetar flares (Lyubarsky 2014), and emission from superconducting cosmic strings (Vachaspati 2008).”
• Maximum mass, moment of inertia and compactness of relativistic stars (2016, background): “…from those that want to associate Fast Radio Bursts (Thornton et al. 2013) to a “blitzar” and hence to the collapse of a supramassive neutron star (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014), over to those that apply this scenario to the merger of binary neutron-star systems (Zhang 2014) and are thus interested…”
• Fast radio burst source properties and curvature radiation model (2017, neutral): “Many progenitor models have been proposed, including: collapsing neutron stars (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014; Zhang 2014), neutron star or white dwarf mergers (Piro 2012; Kashiyama et al. 2013; Totani 2013), magnetar bursts2 (Popov & Postnov 2010; Lyubarsky 2014; Pen & Connor 2015; Katz 2016b; Murase et…”
• The Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102 as Seen on Milliarcsecond Angular Scales (2017, background): “Young neutron star and nebula As previously shown by Spitler et al. (2016), the repeatability of FRB 121102 rules out an origin in a cataclysmic event that destroyed the progenitor source, e.g. the collapse of a supramassive neutron star (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”
• THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, background): “Another interesting possibility is that a fast radio burst (e.g. Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013) may be released when the supra-massive magnetar collapses into a black hole (Zhang 2014; Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”
• A “Cosmic Comb” Model of Fast Radio Bursts (2017, background): “The catastrophic models (e.g. Totani 2013; Kashiyama et al. 2013; Falcke & Rezzolla 2014; Zhang 2014, 2016a; Wang et al. 2016) cannot interpret the repeating FRB 121102.”
• The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts – II. New FRB discoveries and their follow-up. (2017, background): “Other theories involve cataclysmic models including neutron star mergers (Totani 2013) and ‘blitzars’ occurring when a neutron star collapses to a black hole (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”
• FAST RADIO BURSTS FROM THE INSPIRAL OF DOUBLE NEUTRON STARS (2016, background): “Following Falcke & Rezzolla (2014), the total power of coherent radiation is Pc ≃ N −1 slicesN 2 ePe ≃ 4.6× 10 39γǫ20.”
• THE REPEATING FAST RADIO BURST FRB 121102: MULTI-WAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS AND ADDITIONAL BURSTS (2016, background): “Examples include the merger of neutron stars or white dwarfs (Kashiyama et al. 2013), or the collapse of a fast-spinning and anomalously massive neutron star into a black hole (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”
• Fast radio bursts as synchrotron maser emission from decelerating relativistic blast waves (2019, background): “…by one-off energy injection events from young compact objects (e.g. from the delayed collapse of a supramassive neutron star to a black hole; Falcke & Rezzolla 2014), and the medium surrounding the object is not cleared out by previous flares, then relevant external density would be that…”
• A burst in a wind bubble and the impact on baryonic ejecta: high-energy gamma-ray flashes and afterglows from fast radio bursts and pulsar-driven supernova remnants (2016, methodology): “Also, in general, the energy source of FRB emission itself does not have to be rotation energy that is responsible for the nebular emission (e.g., Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”
• Supergiant pulses from extragalactic neutron stars (2015, background): “Nonetheless, radiation reaction is likely a generic issue for understanding ERBs regardless of the class of objects that cause them, including the collapse of supramassive NS (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014) and other sources.”
• The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts (2014, methodology): “…been suggested to produce FRBs at cosmological distances, including magnetar hyperflares (e.g. Popov & Postnov 2013), binary white dwarf (Kashiyama, Ioka & Mészáros 2013) or neutron star (NS; Totani 2013) mergers, and the collapse of supramassive NSs to form black holes (Falcke & Rezzolla 2014).”