The magnetic field and turbulence of the cosmic web measured using a brilliant fast radio burst
Abstract
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration events thought to originate beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Uncertainty surrounding the burst sources, and their propagation through intervening plasma, has limited their use as cosmological probes. We report on a mildly dispersed (dispersion measure 266.5 ± 0.1 pc cm^(−3)), exceptionally intense (120 ± 30 Jy), linearly polarized, scintillating burst (FRB 150807) that we directly localize to 9 arcmin^2. Based on a low Faraday rotation (12.0 ± 0.7 rad m^(−2)), we infer negligible magnetization in the circum-burst plasma and constrain the net magnetization of the cosmic web along this sightline to <21 nG, parallel to the line-of-sight. The burst scintillation suggests weak turbulence in the ionized intergalactic medium.
Additional Information
© 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 15 March 2016; accepted 27 October 2016. Published online 17 November 2016. We thank both D. Schnitzeler and the SUPERB collaboration for useful feedback on the manuscript. The Parkes radio telescope is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). N.D.R.B. is supported by a Curtin Research Fellowship. The data for FRB 150807 reported in this paper are made available through the CSIRO data access portal at http://doi.org/10.4225/08/580ffcb0d68cc .Attached Files
Accepted Version - 1611.05758.pdf
Supplemental Material - 16/science.aaf6807.DC1/Python-Code.zip
Supplemental Material - 16/science.aaf6807.DC1/Ravi-SM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 72033
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20161115-114958283
- Commonwealth of Australia
- Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO)
- Curtin University
- Created
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2016-11-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-11Created from EPrint's last_modified field