2023-10-21 16:26:14
Fast radio bursts are mysterious radio sources whose nature is not yet known, although they are probably neutron stars. We have just detected the most distant one known to date, and with its tremendous light power it literally illuminates the mystery of the lost protons of the Big Bang.
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We have been talking regularly for about ten years about rapid radio bursts (Fast Radio Bursts, or FRB in English), also called “Lorimer bursts”, named after their discoverer. They generally appear as transient signals where the equivalent of all the energy radiated by the Sun in the visible during a year seems released in a few milliseconds at most in the radio domain. Their discovery was initially made thanks to new analyzes of archived data collected by the Parkes radio telescope, in Australia. For a while, it was not clear whether we were dealing with something new or just spurious signals. But it was finally demonstrated that these were indeed new radio sources and outside the Milky Way.
Speculation was rife and it was also hoped that new types of stars could be hidden behind the FRBs, suggesting new leaps in knowledge. After all, the discovery of pulsars and neutron stars opened the door to the detection of gravitational waves, so the new associated astronomy will possibly provide us with insights into new physics and breakthroughs in cosmology, as illustrated perhaps what the collaboration of theInternational Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA).
The hunt for FRBs in Canada. To obtain a fairly accurate French translation, click on the white rectangle at the bottom right. English subtitles should then appear. Then click on the nut to the right of the rectangle, then on “Subtitles” and finally on “Automatically translate”. Choose “French”. © Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
30 years of radiation from the Sun emitted in less than a millisecond
Several radio telescopes study FRBs today, but we also seek to locate them in galaxies once we know their coordinates on the celestial dome with sufficient precision using these instruments. We can then see with more traditional telescopes if we can associate with the radio source a source in the visible or infrared with instruments like the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). In fact, this is what just happened with the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A, detected in June last year using the Askap radio telescope in Australia.
The ESO has just announced via a press release accompanying a publication in the famous magazine Science that FRB 20220610A is the most distant fast radio burst detected to date, having occurred around 8 billion years ago, which shatters the previous distance record by 50%. We also learn that it was particularly powerful since it released in less than a millisecond the equivalent of the energy emitted at all wavelengths by the Sun in 30 years.
In I told him about ESOStuart Ryder, an astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia and co-lead author of the published study, explains: “ Thanks to Askap’s parabolic antenna network, we were able to precisely determine the origin of the burst. We then used the ESO VLT in Chile to search for the source galaxy, and found that it was older and more distant than any other FRB sources discovered to date, and was likely located at within a small group of galaxies in the process of merging. »
FRBs as probes of intergalactic matter
However, according to Ryan Shannon, professor at Swinburne Technological University in Australia, this discovery can make it possible to probe the layers of light in the cosmos by helping to find the famous protons lost from the Big Bang. The researcher thus recalls that “ If we count the amount of normal matter in the Universe – the atoms of which we are all made – we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing. We think the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see with usual techniques. Fast radio bursts detect this ionized material. Even in almost perfectly empty space, they can “see” all the electrons, allowing us to measure the amount of matter between galaxies ».
What did the Universe look like when the first galaxies formed? How are planets formed? And is there life there? To answer the biggest questions, you need the biggest machine. The largest scientific facility ever built by humanity: two telescopes extending beyond the horizon in remote parts of Australia and South Africa. To obtain a fairly accurate French translation, click on the white rectangle at the bottom right. English subtitles should then appear. Then click on the nut to the right of the rectangle, then on “Subtitles” and finally on “Automatically translate”. Choose “French”. © SKAO Communications Office
In the near future, collaboration Square Kilometre Array will provide the noosphere with two impressive arrays of giant radio telescopes in South Africa and Australia, which will be capable of detecting thousands of FRBs at great distances from the Milky Way. The ESO is also preparing to operationalize its Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) which should make it possible to see the galaxies probably associated with these FRBs, largely beating current records.
We will then be able to specify even more the value and distribution of the missing baryonic matter, the quantity of which is estimated from calculations of the primordial nucleosynthesis of the Big Bang. Sadly, Hubert Reeves is no longer around to see these upcoming discoveries.
The ESO press release adds on this subject that as in the case of FRB 20220610A, we will be able to use what we today call the Macquart relation, discovered by the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre Macquart in 2020 and which makes it possible to estimate, with the characteristics of FRB radiation, the quantity of diffuse gas between the galaxies that can precisely account for the protons lost from the Big Bang.
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