From the Editors
Welcome to this leap day edition of the FRB Newsletter, where we barely squeeze in our February issue under the wire. It is an action-packed one, including news of the first definitive evidence for a compact object in the SN1987A remnant, and the report of a pair of glitches in X-ray timing of SGR 1935+2154 that bracketed the detection of a bright radio burst in October 2022. We hope you grab a beverage of your choice and enjoy browsing this selection!
Papers of Interest
Observational Results
- Scale-invariant Phenomena in Repeating Fast Radio Bursts and Glitching Pulsars; Gao & Wei, arXiv: 2401.13916
- Similarity to earthquakes again: periodic radio pulses of the magnetar SGR 1935+2154 are accompanied by aftershocks like fast radio bursts; Tsuzuki et al., arXiv: 2401.16758
- A search for millisecond radio bursts with Messier 82; Paine et al., arXiv: 2401.17242
- Polarization properties of the 128 non-repeating fast radio bursts from the first CHIME/FRB baseband catalog; Pandhi et al., arXiv: 2401.17378
- Detecting Extragalactic Axion-like Dark Matter with Polarization Measurements of Fast Radio Bursts; Wang et al., arXiv: 2402.00473
- FLIMFLAM DR1: The First Constraints on the Cosmic Baryon Distribution from 8 FRB sightlines; Khrykin et al., arXiv: 2402.00505
- On the Broadening of the Pulse Width of FRB 20121102A due to Propagation and Instrumental Effects; Wei et al., arXiv: 2402.02360
- A pulsar-like swing in the polarisation position angle of a nearby fast radio burst; Mckinven et al., arXiv: 2402.09304
- Simultaneous multi-wavelength observations of the repeating fast radio burst FRB 20190520B with Swift and FAST; Yan et al., arXiv: 2402.12084
Theory and Modeling
- Plasma lensing interpretation of FRB 20201124A bursts at the end of September 2021; Chen et al., arXiv: 2401.18036
Algorithms, Instrumentation, and Data Access
- Filling the radio transients gap (or: The case for a dedicated radio transients monitoring array in the southern hemisphere); Fender et al., arXiv: 2402.04698
- Recovering pulsar periodicity from time of arrival data by finding the shortest vector in a lattice; Gazith et al., arXiv: 2402.07228
- CHIME/FRB Outriggers: KKO Station System and Commissioning Results; Lanman et al., arXiv: 2402.07898
- Reduced-resolution beamforming: lowering the computational cost for pulsar and technosignature surveys; Price, arXiv: 2402.12723
- TransientX: A high performance single pulse search package; Men & Barr, arXiv: 2401.13834
- RFI-DRUnet: Restoring dynamic spectra corrupted by radio frequency interference -- Application to pulsar observations; Xiao et al., arXiv: 2402.13867
- The Zwicky Transient Facility Bright Transient Survey. III. BTSbot: Automated Identification and Follow-up of Bright Transients with Deep Learning; Rehemtulla et al., arXiv: 2401.15167
- SDHDF: A new file format for spectral-domain radio astronomy data; Toomey et al., arXiv: 2402.17973
Magnetars and other relevant results
- The Circular Polarization Reverse in Magnetar Bursts; Wada & Shimoda, arXiv: 2401.16783
- Collapsing massive stars and their EM transients; Janiuk et al., arXiv: 2401.17156
- Upper limits on the radio pulses from magnetars and a central compact object with FAST; Lu et al., arXiv: 2402.05647
- An X-ray and radio view of the 2022 reactivation of the magnetar SGRJ1935+2154; Ibrahim et al., arXiv: 2402.08596
- GRB 231115A -- a magnetar giant flare in the M82 galaxy; Minaev et al., arXiv: 2402.08623
- Rapid spin changes around a magnetar fast radio burst; Hu et al., Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-07012-5; arXiv: 2402.09291
"... we report the X-ray observation of two glitches in SGR 1935+2154 within a time interval of approximately nine hours, bracketing an FRB that occurred on 14 October 2022. Each glitch involved a significant increase in the magnetar's spin frequency, being among the largest abrupt changes in neutron-star rotation observed so far."
- Could long-period transients be powered by primordial black hole capture?; Baumgarte & Shapiro, arXiv: 2402.11019
- Emission lines due to ionizing radiation from a compact object in the remnant of Supernova 1987A; Fransson et al., Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.adj5796
"...we observe the supernova remnant with JWST spectroscopy, finding narrow infrared emission lines of argon and sulfur. The line emission is spatially unresolved and blueshifted in velocity relative to the supernova rest frame. We interpret the lines as gas illuminated by a source of ionizing photons located close to the center of the expanding ejecta. Photoionization models show that the line ratios are consistent with ionization by a cooling neutron star or a pulsar wind nebula."
- Concise Spectrotemporal Studies of Magnetar SGR J1935+2154 Bursts; Keskin et al., arXiv: 2402.18151
From the Astronomer's Telegram
- FRB20240114A, a new highly active repeating FRB, was discovered at CHIME (400-800 MHz) at a DM of 527.7 pc/cc [ATel 16420]. Follow-up detections were reported at Parkes at 1.3 GHz [ATel 16430, 16431] and at Westerbork at 327 MHz [ATel 16432], as well as at FAST (1.0-1.2 GHz; ATel 16433, 16435) and at the Northern Cross radio telescope (408 MHz; ATel 16434). A cluster of galaxies was identified along the line of sight [ATel 16426] and MeerKAT detections at 1.2 GHz led to the identification of a host galaxy at a photometric redshift z~0.42 [ATel 16446]. The FRB was also detected by GMRT at 300 MHz to 1.4 GHz, with upper limits (140 microJy, 5 sigma) on any associated compact persistent radio source [ATel 16452].
- FRB20240216A, another repeating FRB, was discovered at ASKAP (0.9 GHz, ATel 16468), but was not detected with FAST in one hour of follow-up observation at 1.4 GHz [ATel 16482].
Meetings and conference news
Do you have an item for future newsletters? Please send these via email to the editors (Shami and Kenzie) to be included in an upcoming issue.
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