Space Sciences/Astrophysics Seminar with Yuanhong Qu on Fast Radio Bursts

Yuanhong Qu (Hosted by Chen) from University of Nevada Las Vegas will be presenting the seminar "Fast Radio Bursts: Radiation, Propagation and Polarization"

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are the milliseconds-duration radio bursts mainly originating from cosmological distances. Observations show that FRBs are highly polarized. Polarization properties carry important information about radiation mechanisms and environment properties of FRB sources. In this talk, I will discuss two main questions regarding the physical mechanisms of FRBs by using observational results. The topics include “Where is the radiation region of FRBs?” and “How are FRBs produced through possible coherent radiation mechanisms?”. I will provide arguments that FRBs are likely originated from magnetar magnetosphere, and discuss the production and propagation of FRBs. I will comment on the pros and cons of close-in (Pulsar-like) and far-away (GRB-like) radiation models based on the observational bandwidth data.

Sponsored by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.