Fast radio bursts are bright, unresolved, non-repeating, broadband, millisecond flashes, found primarily at high Galactic latitudes, with dispersion measures much larger than expected for a Galactic source. The inferred all-sky burst rate is comparable to the core-collapse supernova rate out to redshift 0.5. If the observed dispersion measures are assumed to be dominated by the intergalactic medium, the sources are at cosmological distances with redshifts of 0.2 to 1 (refs 10 and 11). These parameters are consistent with a wide range of source models. One fast burst revealed circular polarization of the radio emission, but no linear polarization was detected, and hence no Faraday rotation measure could be determined. Here we report the examination of archival data revealing Faraday rotation in the fast radio burst FRB 110523. Its radio flux and dispersion measure are consistent with values from previously reported bursts and, accounting for a Galactic contribution to the dispersion and using a model of intergalactic electron density, we place the source at a maximum redshift of 0.5. The burst has a much higher rotation measure than expected for this line of sight through the Milky Way and the intergalactic medium, indicating magnetization in the vicinity of the source itself or within a host galaxy. The pulse was scattered by two distinct plasma screens during propagation, which requires either a dense nebula associated with the source or a location within the central region of its host galaxy. The detection in this instance of magnetization and scattering that are both local to the source favours models involving young stellar populations such as magnetars over models involving the mergers of older neutron stars, which are more likely to be located in low-density regions of the host galaxy.
We report results from 21-cm intensity maps acquired from the Parkes radio telescope and cross-correlated with galaxy maps from the 2dF galaxy survey. The data span the redshift range 0.057 < z < 0.098 and cover approximately 1,300 square degrees over two long fields. Cross correlation is detected at a significance of 5.18 σ. The amplitude of the cross-power spectrum is low relative to the expected dark matter power spectrum, assuming a neutral hydrogen (HI) bias and mass density equal to measurements from the ALFALFA survey. The decrement is pronounced and statistically significant at small scales. At k ∼ 1.5 h Mpc −1 , the cross power spectrum is more than a factor of 6 lower than expected, with a significance of 14.8 σ. This decrement indicates either a lack of clustering of neutral hydrogen (HI) , a small correlation coefficient between optical galaxies and HI , or some combination of the two. Separating 2dF into red and blue galaxies, we find that red galaxies are much more weakly correlated with HI on k ∼ 1.5 h Mpc −1 scales, suggesting that HI is more associated with blue star-forming galaxies and tends to avoid red galaxies.
In the multifractal analysis of the large-scale matter distribution, the scale of the transition to homogeneity is defined as the scale above which the fractal dimension (D q ) of the underlying point distribution is equal to the ambient dimension (D) of the space in which points are distributed. With the finite sized weakly clustered distribution of tracers obtained from galaxy redshift surveys it is difficult to achieve this equality. Recently Bagla et al. have defined the scale of homogeneity to be the scale above which the deviation ( D q ) of the fractal dimension from the ambient dimension becomes smaller than the statistical dispersion of D q , i.e. σ D q . In this paper we use the relation between the fractal dimensions and the correlation function to compute σ D q for any given model in the limit of weak clustering amplitude. We compare D q and σ D q for the cold dark matter ( CDM) model and discuss the implication of this comparison for the expected scale of homogeneity in the concordant model of cosmology. We estimate the upper limit to the scale of homogeneity to be close to 260 h −1 Mpc for the CDM model. Actual estimates of the scale of homogeneity should be smaller than this as we have considered only the statistical contribution to σ D q and we have ignored cosmic variance and contributions due to survey geometry and the selection function. Errors arising due to these factors enhance σ D q and as D q decreases with increasing scale, we expect to measure a smaller scale of homogeneity. We find that as long as non-linear corrections to the computation of D q are insignificant, the scale of homogeneity does not change with epoch. The scale of homogeneity depends very weakly on the choice of tracer of the density field. Thus the suggested definition of the scale of homogeneity is fairly robust.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.