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Pioneering research by Italian scientists
New research by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) sheds new light on the mysterious phenomenon of fast radio bursts (FBRs). The research team, which includes researchers from the Universities of Bologna, Trieste and Calabria, as well as international partners from China, the United States, Spain and Germany, has recorded the weakest continuous radio emission ever detected for an FRB.
The subject of the study is FRB20201124A, a fast radio burst discovered in 2020 whose source is located approximately 1.3 billion light-years from Earth. The observations were made using the world’s most sensitive radio telescope, the Very Large Array (VLA) in the United States. The data allowed scientists to verify theoretical predictions that fast radio bursts are the source of persistent radio emissions. plasma bubble.
According to Gabriele Bruni, a researcher at the National Research Institute in Rome and lead author of a new paper published in the journal Nature:
Through observations we were able to show that the continuous emission observed with some of the fast radio bursts behaves as expected by the nebular emission model, i.e. a “bubble” of ionized gas surrounding the central engine.
New discoveries confirm theories
According to the new data, this phenomenon is based on a magnetar (a highly magnetized neutron star) or a highly accreted X-ray binary system. The winds produced by the magnetar or X-ray binary would be able to “blow up” the plasma bubble, causing powerful radio emissions.
Most fast radio bursts do not show continuous emission, which makes the study of FRB20201124A unique. Understanding the nature of the continuous emission allows scientists to add another piece to the puzzle of these mysterious cosmic sources.
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