A Bright Millisecond Radio Burst of Extragalactic Origin

By D. R. Lorimer, M. Bailes, M. Mclaughlin, David J. Narkevic, F. Crawford. Science, 2007

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Pulsar surveys offer a rare opportunity to monitor the radio sky for impulsive burst-like events with millisecond durations. We analyzed archival survey data and found a 30-jansky dispersed burst, less than 5 milliseconds in duration, located 3° from the Small Magellanic Cloud. The burst properties argue against a physical association with our Galaxy or the Small Magellanic Cloud. Current models for the free electron content in the universe imply that the burst is less than 1 gigaparsec distant. No further bursts were seen in 90 hours of additional observations, which implies that it was a singular event such as a supernova or coalescence of relativistic objects. Hundreds of similar events could occur every day and, if detected, could serve as cosmological probes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/333714a99ed349ce648037afedcb2b0ff504c5a8

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Citations in the corpus

FAST RADIO BURSTS FROM THE INSPIRAL OF DOUBLE NEUTRON STARS (2016, background): “Up to now, 17 FRBs have been detected (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Burke-Spolaor & Bannister 2014; Spitler et al. 2014, 2016; Ravi et al. 2015; Petroff et al. 2015; Champion et al. 2015; Masui et al. 2015; Keane et al. 2016).”
LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray (2013, background): “Most strange perhaps was the discovery of a millisecond dispersed radio burst from near the direction of the Small Magellanic Cloud (Lorimer et al. 2007), which –if astrophysical in origin at all– certainly implies most strange and extreme compact-object astrophysics.”
MERGERS OF CHARGED BLACK HOLES: GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENTS, SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, AND FAST RADIO BURSTS (2016, background): “On the other hand, fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious milliseconds-duration radio transients (Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013).”
A NEW ELECTRON-DENSITY MODEL FOR ESTIMATION OF PULSAR AND FRB DISTANCES (2016, methodology): “The first FRB, discovered by Lorimer et al. (2007), remained enigmatically alone for several years, but in the past few years many more have been detected6, firmly establishing them as an extragalactic phenomenon.”
Millisecond Magnetar Birth Connects FRB 121102 to Superluminous Supernovae and Long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2017, background): “…of milliseconds or less and dispersion measures DM ∼ 500 − 1200 pc cm−3 much larger than expected for propagation through the Galaxy or its halo (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Spitler et al. 2014; Ravi et al. 2015; Petroff et al. 2016; Champion et al. 2016;…”
On the origin of a highly dispersed coherent radio burst (2012, methodology): “Furthermore we agree with the conclusion of Burke-Spolaor et al. (2011) that the LB originated from a boresight astrophysical source, as originally concluded by Lorimer et al. (2007).”
Fifty years of pulsar candidate selection: from simple filters to a new principled real-time classification approach (2016, background): “Real-time searches for fast radio bursts (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013) are also becoming increasingly common (Karastergiou et al. 2015; Law et al. 2015; Petroff et al. 2015).”
Constraints on the distribution and energetics of fast radio bursts using cosmological hydrodynamic simulations (2014, background): “1 (Ioka 2003; Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013).”
Cosmological Fast Radio Bursts from Binary Neutron Star Mergers (2013, background): “Thornton et al. (2013) reported a discovery of four enigmatic radio transients emitting Jansky level flux during a few milliseconds, called fast radio bursts (FRBs) (see also Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012 for earlier events of possibly the same population).”
Highest Frequency Detection of FRB 121102 at 4–8 GHz Using the Breakthrough Listen Digital Backend at the Green Bank Telescope (2018, background): “Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a class of radio transients with an inferred extragalactic origin due to their anomalously high dispersion measures (DMs) relative to the contribution expected from the Galactic electron distribution (Lorimer et al. 2007).”
Five new fast radio bursts from the HTRU high-latitude survey at Parkes: First evidence for two-component bursts (2015, methodology): “The first detected Fast Radio Burst (FRB), now known as FRB 010724, was found in a search for pulsars using a technique to detect bright single pulses using the Parkes radio telescope (Lorimer et al. 2007).”
Fast radio bursts as synchrotron maser emission from decelerating relativistic blast waves (2019, background): “…pulses of ∼ GHz radio emission with durations of less than a few milliseconds and large dispersion measures (DM), indicating an extragalactic origin (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Spitler et al. 2014; Ravi et al. 2015; Champion et al. 2016; Petroff et al. 2016;…”
The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts (2014, background): “1 IN T RO D U C T I O N Fast radio bursts (FRBs; Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013) are among the most exciting astronomical discoveries of the last decade.”
The Magnetar Model for Type I Superluminous Supernovae. I. Bayesian Analysis of the Full Multicolor Light-curve Sample with MOSFiT (2017, background): “Another transient phenomenon that has recently generated a lot of interest is the new class of fast radio bursts (FRBs; Lorimer et al. 2007).”
CHIME/FRB Discovery of Eight New Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources (2019, background): “Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a transient astrophysical phenomenon consisting of millisecondduration bursts of radio waves whose dispersion measures (DMs) imply cosmological origins (Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013).”
LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products (2008, background): “Deep optical observations with LSST may also help illuminate the nature of the still-mysterious Lorimer Bursts (Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013).”