Triggered superradiance and fast radio bursts

Abstract

In this paper we develop a model for fast radio bursts (FRBs) based on triggered superradiance (SR) and apply it to previously published data of FRB 110220 and FRB 121102. We show how a young pulsar located at ∼ 100 pc or more from an SR/FRB system could initiate the onset of a powerful burst of radiation detectable over cosmological distances. Our models using the OH 2 Π 3/2 (J = 3/2) 1612 MHz and 2 Π 3/2 (J = 5/2) 6030 MHz spectral lines match the light curves well and suggest the entanglement of more than 10 30 initially inverted molecules over lengths of approximately 300 au for a single SR sample. SR also accounts for the observed temporal narrowing of FRB pulses with increasing frequency for FRB 121102, and predicts a scaling of the FRB spectral bandwidth with the frequency of observation, which we found to be consistent with the existing data.

New evidence for Dicke’s superradiance in the 6.7 GHz methanol spectral line in the interstellar medium

“…The column density of the inverted population is (nL) SR = 6.4 × 10 3 cm −2 and the SR flux density is scaled to the data. of the inverted region (Gross & Haroche 1982), as is the case for the astronomical maser (Houde et al 2019).…”

“…The computation methods in this paper are similar to what was used in Houde et al (2019), with the exception that in the present case the initiation of SR is accomplished through a pumping pulse at a shorter wavelength (as opposed to a triggering pulse at the frequency of the SR transition). Otherwise, the methodology below closely follows that found in Arecchi & Courtens (1970); Gross & Haroche (1982); Benedict et al (1996); Houde et al (2019).…”

“…However, it had remained unknown to the astronomy community until its recent applications to the interstellar medium (ISM) (Rajabi & Houde 2016a,b;Rajabi 2016;Rajabi & Houde 2017). SR, a coherent radiation mechanism, can provide explanation for strong radiation bursts taking place over a wide domain of time-scales ranging from sub-seconds (Mathews 2017;Houde et al 2019;Houde, Mathews & Rajabi 2018) to several years (Rajabi & Houde 2016b).…”

Commensal discovery of four fast radio bursts during Parkes Pulsar Timing Array observations

“…In contrast to majority of non-repeating FRBs, the bursts in our sample are highly polarized, suggesting that strong magnetic fields are involved in their emission mechanism, and show a variety of RMs, which in turn provides insight into strength and structure of magnetic fields in the inter-galactic medium. Measurement of polarization of FRBs is important to help understand the emission mechanism (e.g., Houde et al 2019;Lu et al 2019). Some of the proposed models, such as those proposed by Lyubarsky (2014); Be-loborodov (2017); Ghisellini (2017); Waxman (2017), would need to be adjusted to reproduce the high degrees of polarization observed in a growing number of FRBs.…”

Superradiance in massive vector fields with spatially varying mass

“…Since we do not observe such a distortion, one could place bounds on the existence of highly spinning PBHs, provided the mechanism is considered sufficiently robust to occur in a generic situation. Finally, it has been speculated that destabilization of the superradiant build up in plasmas may explain energetic transient signals at radio frequencies, such as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) [44,[62][63][64].…”