Fast Radio Bursts: An overview with a focus on magnetars as potential progenitors

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are intense millisecond-duration bursts that originate at cosmological distances. There have currently been detected events from 638 unique sources; 614 one-off events and 24 repeating events. With 19 host galaxy localizations, FRBs have been found to originate from various host galaxies and local environments. Progenitor models have been proposed, with magnetars as a promising candidate. Observations have been made supporting that theory, including a Galactic magnetar that has been confirmed to produce FRBs. A sample of FRB hosts has been found to be consistent with the hosts of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), indicating that FRB progenitors are consistent with a population of magnetars formed in CCSNe. Other formation channels have been proposed to explain FRBs originating from different environments, e.g., the globular cluster in the M81 galaxy. Those channels could form magnetars via a merger-induced collapse of a binary-system involving neutron stars and white dwarfs (WD-WD, NS-WD and NS-NS), or an accretion-induced collapse of a white dwarf. FRB emission models compatible with magnetar progenitors have been constrained by measurements of the burst properties.