Fast radio bursts as giant pulses from young rapidly rotating pulsars
Abstract
We discuss possible association of fast radio bursts (FRBs) with supergiant pulses emitted by young pulsars (ages ∼ tens to hundreds of years) born with regular magnetic field but very short - few milliseconds - spin periods. We assume that FRBs are extra-Galactic events coming from distances d ≲ 100 Mpc and that most of the dispersion measure (DM) comes from the material in the freshly ejected SNR shell. We then predict that for a given burst the DM should decrease with time and that FRBs are not expected to be seen below ∼300 MHz due to free-free absorption in the expanding ejecta. A supernova might have been detected years before the burst; FRBs are mostly associated with star-forming galaxies. The model requires that some pulsars are born with very fast spins, of the order of few milliseconds. The observed distribution of spin-down powers dot{E} in young energetic pulsars is consistent with equal birth rate per decade of dot{E}. Accepting this injection distribution and scaling the intrinsic brightness of FRBs with dot{E}, we predict the following properties of a large sample of FRBs: (I) the brightest observed events come from a broad distribution in distances; (II) for repeating bursts brightness either remains nearly constant (if the spin-down time is longer than the age of the pulsar) or decreases with time otherwise; in the latter case DM ∝ dot{E}.
- Publication:
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- October 2016
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1603.02891
- Bibcode:
- 2016MNRAS.462..941L
- Keywords:
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- radiation mechanisms: general;
- stars: neutron;
- pulsars: general;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1669