There’s a Strange New Theory For Those Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts in Space

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have fascinated astronomers ever since the first one was detected in 2007. This event was named the “Lorimer Burst” after it discoverer, Duncan Lorimer from West Virginia University.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

There’s a Strange New Theory For Those Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts in Space

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have fascinated astronomers ever since the first one was detected in 2007. This event was named the “Lorimer Burst” after it discoverer, Duncan Lorimer from West Virginia University.

more…

The discoverer was actually his wife. Different last name. But he wrote it up.

> However, according to a new study by a team of Chinese astronomers, FRBs may be linked to crusts forming around “strange stars”. According to a model they created, it is the collapse of these crusts that lead to high-energy bursts that can be seen light-years away.

I’ve seen this theory before.

A “strange star” is actually just a hypothetical type of neutron star, along with “quark star”. There’s nothing particularly strange about it. Collapse of crusts of neutron stars are exceptionally well known, at least many hundreds have been observed. The show up as “glitches” in pulsar rotation.

These glitches don’t have anywhere near enough energy to account for FRBs.

So far only one star has been observed to have multiple FRBs and these have occurred at random. Because glitches also occur at random, that’s probably where they got the idea.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

There’s a Strange New Theory For Those Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts in Space

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have fascinated astronomers ever since the first one was detected in 2007. This event was named the “Lorimer Burst” after it discoverer, Duncan Lorimer from West Virginia University.

more…

The discoverer was actually his wife. Different last name. But he wrote it up.

> However, according to a new study by a team of Chinese astronomers, FRBs may be linked to crusts forming around “strange stars”. According to a model they created, it is the collapse of these crusts that lead to high-energy bursts that can be seen light-years away.

I’ve seen this theory before.

A “strange star” is actually just a hypothetical type of neutron star, along with “quark star”. There’s nothing particularly strange about it. Collapse of crusts of neutron stars are exceptionally well known, at least many hundreds have been observed. The show up as “glitches” in pulsar rotation.

These glitches don’t have anywhere near enough energy to account for FRBs.

So far only one star has been observed to have multiple FRBs and these have occurred at random. Because glitches also occur at random, that’s probably where they got the idea.

Actually, this theory isn’t new, it dates back to 2007.

Or to put it another way, the repeating FRB is 3 billion light years away. The most distant pulsar we can see, by comparison is only 50 million light years away, way too faint to observe at that distance.

From Wikipedia,

Origin hypotheses

Because of the isolated nature of the observed phenomenon, the nature of the source remains speculative. As of 2016, there is no generally accepted explanation. The source is estimated to be no larger than a few hundred kilometers in size because of causality (the bursts last for only a few milliseconds). If the bursts come from cosmological distances, their sources must be very bright.

One possible explanation would be a collision between very dense objects like merging black holes or neutron stars. It has been suggested that there is a connection to gamma-ray bursts. Some have speculated that these signals might be artificial in origin, that they may be signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

In 2007, just after the publication of the e-print with the first discovery, it was proposed that fast radio bursts could be related to hyperflares of magnetars. In 2015 three studies supported the magnetar hypothesis.

Especially energetic supernova could be the source of these bursts. Blitzars were proposed in 2013 as an explanation. In 2014 it was suggested that following dark matter-induced collapse of pulsars, the resulting expulsion of the pulsar magnetospheres could be the source of fast radio bursts. In 2015 it was suggested that FRBs are caused by explosive decays of axion miniclusters. Another exotic possible source are cosmic strings that produced these burst as they interacted with the plasma that permeated the early Universe. In2016 the collapse of the magnetospheres of Kerr–Newman black holes were proposed to explain the origin of the FRBs’ “afterglow” and the weak gamma-ray transient 0.4 s after GW 150914. It has also been proposed that if fast radio bursts originate in black hole explosions, FRBs would be the first detection of quantum gravity effects. In early 2017, it was proposed that the strong magnetic field near a supermassive black hole could destabilize the current sheets within a pulsar’s magnetosphere, releasing trapped energy to power the FRBs.

Repeated bursts of FRB 121102 have initiated multiple origin hypotheses. A coherent emission phenomenon known as superradiance, which involves large-scale entangled quantum mechanical states possibly arising in environments such as active galactic nuclei, has been proposed to explain these and other associated observations with FRBs (e.g. high event rate, variable intensity profiles).

This press article claims FRBs are alien starships. From September 11.

https://amp.space.com/41775-breakthrough-listen-fast-radio-bursts.html

Last year’s mysterious outburst of deep-space light flashes was even more frenzied than previously thought, a new study reports. On Aug. 26, 2017, astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project — a $100 million effort to hunt for signs of intelligent alien life — spotted 21 repeating light pulses called fast radio bursts (FRBs) emanating from the dwarf galaxy FRB 121102 within the span of 1 hour.

In the new study, Breakthrough Listen team members based at the University of California, Berkeley SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Center applied machine-learning techniques to the August 2017 data set, which was acquired by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and was originally analyzed using traditional methods.

The researchers, led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Gerry Zhang, trained an algorithm called a “convolutional neural network” to spot FRBs among the 400 terabytes of data. The strategy is similar to that employed by IT companies to optimize internet search results, Breakthrough Listen representatives said in a statement.

Zhang and his colleagues dug up an additional 72 light flashes, bringing the total number of FRBs detected on that day, from that single source (whatever it may be), to 93.

mollwollfumble said:

This press article claims FRBs are alien starships. From September 11.

https://amp.space.com/41775-breakthrough-listen-fast-radio-bursts.html

Last year’s mysterious outburst of deep-space light flashes was even more frenzied than previously thought, a new study reports. On Aug. 26, 2017, astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project — a $100 million effort to hunt for signs of intelligent alien life — spotted 21 repeating light pulses called fast radio bursts (FRBs) emanating from the dwarf galaxy FRB 121102 within the span of 1 hour.

In the new study, Breakthrough Listen team members based at the University of California, Berkeley SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Center applied machine-learning techniques to the August 2017 data set, which was acquired by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and was originally analyzed using traditional methods.

The researchers, led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Gerry Zhang, trained an algorithm called a “convolutional neural network” to spot FRBs among the 400 terabytes of data. The strategy is similar to that employed by IT companies to optimize internet search results, Breakthrough Listen representatives said in a statement.

Zhang and his colleagues dug up an additional 72 light flashes, bringing the total number of FRBs detected on that day, from that single source (whatever it may be), to 93.

They talked about the possibility of FRB being used by ET’s as a means to communicate, I wonder how you’d go about doing such a thing and what information could you convey

mollwollfumble said:

This press article claims FRBs are alien starships. From September 11.

https://amp.space.com/41775-breakthrough-listen-fast-radio-bursts.html

Last year’s mysterious outburst of deep-space light flashes was even more frenzied than previously thought, a new study reports. On Aug. 26, 2017, astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project — a $100 million effort to hunt for signs of intelligent alien life — spotted 21 repeating light pulses called fast radio bursts (FRBs) emanating from the dwarf galaxy FRB 121102 within the span of 1 hour.

In the new study, Breakthrough Listen team members based at the University of California, Berkeley SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research Center applied machine-learning techniques to the August 2017 data set, which was acquired by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and was originally analyzed using traditional methods.

The researchers, led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Gerry Zhang, trained an algorithm called a “convolutional neural network” to spot FRBs among the 400 terabytes of data. The strategy is similar to that employed by IT companies to optimize internet search results, Breakthrough Listen representatives said in a statement.

Zhang and his colleagues dug up an additional 72 light flashes, bringing the total number of FRBs detected on that day, from that single source (whatever it may be), to 93.

Actually, 93 pulses is enough to carry a significant amount of data, the first extra-terrestrial signal to do so. Perhaps 10 kilobytes, or more.

Or it could be just how a star twinkles.

Or a black hole swallowing an asteroid field.

Cymek said:

They talked about the possibility of FRB being used by ET’s as a means to communicate, I wonder how you’d go about doing such a thing and what information could you convey

Actually, 93 pulses is enough to carry a significant amount of data, the first extra-terrestrial signal to do so. Perhaps 10 kilobytes, or more.

I base that 10 kB on the following.

Divide the time between pulses into 4096 segments. That allows the time between pulses to code for log ₂ (4096) = 12 bits of information.
Divide the pulse strength into 1024 segments. That allows the strength of each pulse to code for log ₂ (1024) = 10 bits of information.
Put it together with 93 and we get 93 * 12 * 10 = 11 kilobits of information. Minus a few bits for error checking.

A spacecraft status report could very easily fit in that.
Even the Apollo guidance computer had only 4 kilowords of of erasable memory.
With Shannon coding, an awful lot of information could be carried in that message.

mollwollfumble said:

Cymek said:

They talked about the possibility of FRB being used by ET’s as a means to communicate, I wonder how you’d go about doing such a thing and what information could you convey

Actually, 93 pulses is enough to carry a significant amount of data, the first extra-terrestrial signal to do so. Perhaps 10 kilobytes, or more.

I base that 10 kB on the following.

Divide the time between pulses into 4096 segments. That allows the time between pulses to code for log ₂ (4096) = 12 bits of information.
Divide the pulse strength into 1024 segments. That allows the strength of each pulse to code for log ₂ (1024) = 10 bits of information.
Put it together with 93 and we get 93 * 12 * 10 = 11 kilobits of information. Minus a few bits for error checking.

A spacecraft status report could very easily fit in that.
Even the Apollo guidance computer had only 4 kilowords of of erasable memory.
With Shannon coding, an awful lot of information could be carried in that message.

How would you modify the pulsar to do that ?