Unraveling the nature of fast radio bursts through a multifaceted look at their local environments

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are luminous impulses of radio waves, lasting only a fraction of a second, and observable over extragalactic distances. I have been a core member of the CHIME/FRB experiment that has revolutionized the field by having so far detected 5,000+ FRBs (~90% of all known FRBs), over fifty repeating FRB sources and an FRB from a previously known object: an extremely magnetized stellar remnant called a magnetar. I established observed differences in the “fingerprints” of bursts from repeating sources and apparent non-repeaters, which hints at the two classes coming from different source types and/or physical processes. I furthermore detected the lowest-frequency FRBs using the LOFAR telescope, which has opened a new observational window that is especially sensitive to interactions of FRBs with the material they have travelled through. In EnviroFlash, we will tackle three of the leading questions in the field: 1) Are there multiple distinct classes of FRBs coming from different source types and/or physical processes? 2) What is the structure and magnetization of the local environment of the compact objects that produce FRBs? 3) How does the activity of FRBs relate to other burst and source properties? The local environments of FRBs are the key to answering these questions. My team will capitalize on the “Outriggers” upgrade to CHIME/FRB and the 2.0 upgrade to LOFAR. With the much better localised sources and associated redshift (distance) measurements from Outriggers we can isolate the local contributions to dispersion, scattering and Faraday rotation and link them to the galactic neighbourhoods of FRBs. With LOFAR observations we can precisely monitor any local environment variations of nearby repeating sources and anchor detailed FRB models.In addition to directly addressing the open questions posed before, this project will make FRBs much more sensitive and precise probes of the density and magnetization of the Universe.