An X-ray burst associated with a fast radio burst (FRB) have been detected by Chinese scientists.
It has been confirmed that it originated from a magnetar in the Milky Way, according to the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) telescope was used to make this discovery on Saturday.
The principal investigator of GECAM, Xiong Shaolin, and a researcher with IHEP, noted that this is the second time in history that humans have managed to detect a high-energy counterpart of an FRB.
This discovery provides extremely valuable data for a deeper understanding of the radiation mechanism of FRBs and the outburst mechanism of magnetars, Xiong said.
The X-ray counterpart of an FRB was detected for the first time in April 2020 using China’s Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), the country’s space science satellite also known as Insight-HXMT, together with other space telescopes.
It turns out that they both originated from the same magnetar named SGR J1935+2154, which further demonstrated that magnetar can emit the elusive FRB.
It is an important step toward unravelling the mystery of the origin of FRB, Xiong said.
The FRBs are the brightest radio bursts known in the universe. They are called fast because these blips are very short, only several milliseconds in duration.
There is yet to be a reasonable explanation for their origin and radiation mechanism.
Magnetars were neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields and can produce violent X-ray bursts during their activity.
The GECAM was launched in December 2020. Their mission focuses on detecting electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves, high-energy radiation from FRBs, various gamma-ray bursts and magnetar flares.
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