Papers › Detection of ultra-fast radio bursts from FRB 20121102A
Detection of ultra-fast radio bursts from FRB 20121102A
M. P. Snelders, K. Nimmo, J. W. T. Hessels, Z. Bensellam, L. P. Zwaan, P. Chawla, O. S. Ould-Boukattine, F. Kirsten, J. T. Faber, V. Gajjar
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Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extragalactic transients with typical durations of milliseconds. FRBs have been shown, however, to fluctuate on a wide range of timescales: some show sub-microsecond sub-bursts while others last up to a few seconds in total. Probing FRBs on a range of timescales is crucial for understanding their emission physics, how to detect them effectively, and how to maximize their utility as astrophysical probes. FRB 20121102A is the first-known repeating FRB source. Here we show that FRB 20121102A is able to produce isolated microsecond-duration bursts whose total durations are more than ten times shorter than all other known FRBs to date. The polarimetric properties of these micro-bursts resemble those of the longer-lasting bursts, suggesting a common emission mechanism producing FRBs spanning a factor of 1,000 in duration. Furthermore, this work shows that there exists a population of ultra-fast radio bursts that current wide-field FRB searches are missing due to insufficient time-resolution. These results indicate that FRBs occur more frequently and with greater diversity than initially thought. This could also influence our understanding of energy, wait time, and burst rate distributions.
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