Radio signals are delayed when propagating through plasma. This type of delay is frequency-dependent and is usually used for estimating the projected number density of electrons along the line of sight, called the dispersion measure. The dense and clumpy distribution of plasma can cause refractive deflections of radio signals, analogous to lensing effects. Similar to gravitational lensing, there are two contributions to the time delay effect in plasma lensing: a geometric delay, due to increased path length of the signal, and a dispersive delay due to the change of speed of light in a plasma medium. We show the delay time for two models of the plasma distribution, and point out that the estimated dispersion measure can be biased. Since the contribution of the geometric effect can be comparable to that of the dispersive delay, the bias in the measured dispersion measure can be dramatically large if plasma lensing effects are not taken into account when signals propagate through a high-density gradient clump of plasma.
It is suggested that fast radio bursts can probe gravitational lensing by clumpy dark matter objects that range in mass from $10^{-3}M_{\odot}$ to $10^2 M_{\odot}$. They may provide a more sensitive probe than observations of lensing of objects in the Magellanic Clouds, and could find or rule out clumpy dark matter with an extended mass spectrum.
Correlated Signatures of Plasma Lensing in Fast Radio Bursts
The Open University of Israel（以色列开放大学）；Astrophysics Research Center of the Open university (ARCO), The Open University of Israel（以色列开放大学天体物理研究中心）；The George Washington University（乔治华盛顿大学）；University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）
Plasma lenses in the host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs) can strongly modulate FRB amplitudes for a wide range of distances, including the $\sim $ Gpc distance of the repeater FRB121102. To produce caustics, the lens' dispersion-measure depth (${\rm DM}_{\ell}$), scale size ($a$), and distance from the source ($d_{\rm sl}$) must satisfy ${\rm DM}_{\ell} d_{\rm sl} / a^2 \gtrsim 0.65~ {\rm pc^2 \ AU^{-2} \ cm^{-3}}$. Caustics produce strong magnifications ($\lesssim 10^2$) on short time scales ($\sim$ hours to days and perhaps shorter) along with narrow, epoch dependent spectral peaks (0.…
A fast radio burst cyclone in technicolour: evidence of plasma lensing
Swinburne University of Technology（斯威本科技大学）；ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)（引力波发现卓越研究中心（OzGrav））；CSIRO（澳大利亚联邦科学与工业研究组织）；Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, Space and Astronomy（CSIRO空间与天文部澳大利亚望远镜国家设施）；Weizmann Institute of Science（魏茨曼科学研究所）；Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, Stanford University（斯坦福大学卡弗里粒子天体物理与宇宙学研究所）
Supernova neutrino bursts have been observed from extragalactic distances. This note addresses the question of how gravitational lensing could distort the information in the burst. We apply the gravitational lens hypothesis to try to understand the time and brightness structure of the SN1987A neutrino observations. Estimates of a possible lensing mass and alignment are made. These estimates suggest a path to verification.
No Strong Evidence for Plasma Lensing in FRB 20240114A
State Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology, National Astronomical Observatories, CAS（中国科学院国家天文台射电天文与技术重点实验室）；The Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Hong Kong（香港大学天文及天体物理研究所）；Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong（香港大学物理系）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）；School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学物理与天文学院）；Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学前沿天文与天体物理研究院）
Gravitational self-lensing of Fast Radio Bursts in neutron star magnetospheres: II. Applications to strong repeaters and the CHIME population
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma（意大利国家天体物理研究所罗马天文台）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Augusto Righi”, Università di Bologna（博洛尼塔大学物理与天文学“奥古斯托·里吉”系）；INAF – Istituto di Radioastronomia（意大利国家天体物理研究所射电天文研究所）；INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari（意大利国家天体物理研究所卡利亚里天文台）
Compact dark matter has been efficiently constrained in the M <~ 10 M_sun mass range by null searches for microlensing of stars in nearby galaxies. Here we propose to probe the mass range M >~ 10 M_sun by seeking echoes in gamma-ray-burst light curves induced by strong lensing. We show that strong gravitational lensing of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) by massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) generates superimposed GRB images with a characteristic time delay of >~ 1 ms for M >~ 10 M_sun. Using dedicated simulations to capture the relevant phenomenology of the GRB prompt emission, we calculate the sig…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are attractive objects for constraining the nature of dark energy in a way complementary to other cosmological probes, especially at high redshifts. However, the apparent magnitude of distant GRBs can be distorted by the gravitational lensing from the density fluctuations along the line of sight. We investigate the gravitational lensing effect on the cosmological parameters and dark energy equation of state from GRBs. We first calibrated the GRB luminosity relations without assuming any cosmological models. The luminosity distances of low-redshift GRBs were calibrated w…
The possibility that part of the dark matter is made of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) remains poorly constrained over a wide range of masses, and especially in the $20-100\, M_\odot$ window. We show that strong gravitational lensing of extragalactic fast radio bursts (FRBs) by MACHOs of masses larger than $\sim20\,M_\odot$ would result in repeated FRBs with an observable time delay. Strong lensing of an FRB by a lens of mass $M_L$ induces two images, separated by a typical time delay $\sim$ few $\times(M_L/30\, M_\odot)$ milliseconds. Considering the expected FRB detection rate by upco…
The possibility that a fraction of the dark matter is comprised of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) remains unclear, especially in the 20-100 $M_{\odot}$ window. MACHOs could make up binaries, whose mergers may be detected by LIGO as gravitational wave events. On the other hand, the cosmological origin of fast radio burst (FRBs) has been confirmed. We investigate the possibility of detecting fast radio bursts (FRBs) gravitational lensed by MACHO binaries to constrain their properties. Since lensing events could generate more than one images, lensing by binaries could cause multiple-peak F…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) data suggest that the jets from GRBs in the high redshift universe are more narrowly collimated than those at lower redshifts. This implies that we detect relatively fewer long GRB progenitor systems (i.e. massive stars) at high redshifts, because a greater fraction of GRBs have their jets pointed away from us. As a result, estimates of the star formation rate (from the GRB rate) at high redshifts may be diminished if this effect is not taken into account. In this paper, we estimate the star formation rate (SFR) using the observed GRB rate, accounting for an evolving jet …
Nanjing University（南京大学）；Sichuan University of Science & Engineering（四川理工学院）；Qufu Normal University（曲阜师范大学）；Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, CAS（中国科学院新疆天文台）；Key Laboratory of Modern Astronomy and Astrophysics (Nanjing University) Ministry of Education（教育部现代天文学与天体物理重点实验室（南京大学））
We describe how gravitational lensing of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is affected by a plasma screen in the vicinity of the lens or somewhere between the source and the observer. Wave passage through a turbulent medium affects gravitational image magnification, lensing probability (particularly for strong magnification events), and the time delay between images. The magnification is suppressed because of the broadening of the angular size of the source due to scattering by the plasma. The time delay between images is modified as the result of different dispersion measure (DM) along photon trajecto…
By employing a simple semi-analytical star formation model where the formation rates of Population (Pop) I/II and III stars can be calculated, respectively, we account for the number distribution of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with high pseudo-redshifts that was derived from an empirical luminosity-indictor relationship. It is suggested that a considerable number of Pop III GRBs could exist in the present sample of Swift GRBs. By further combining the implication for the star formation history from the optical depth of the CMB photons, it is also suggested that only a very small fraction 0.6% of P…
The possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) form a part of dark matter has been considered for a long time but poorly constrained over a wide mass range. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond duration. Lensing effect of them has been proposed as one of the cleanest probes for constraining the presence of PBHs in the stellar mass window. In this paper, we first apply the normalised cross-correlation algorithm to search and identify candidates of lensed FRBs in the latest public FRB observations, i.e. $593$ FRBs which mainly consist of the first Canadian Hy…
The repeating fast radio burst (FRB) 121102 was recently localized in a dwarf galaxy at a cosmological distance. The dispersion measure (DM) derived for each burst from FRB 121102 so far has not shown significant evolution, even though an apparent increase was recently seen with newly detected VLA bursts. It is expected that more repeating FRB sources may be detected in the future. In this work, we investigate a list of possible astrophysical processes that might cause DM variation of a particular FRB source. The processes include (1) the cosmological scale effects such as Hubble expansion and…
Correlated red noise recently reported from pulsar timing observations may be an indication of stochastic gravitational waves emitted by cosmic strings that formed during a primordial phase transition near the Grand Unification energy scale. Unfortunately, known probes of cosmic strings, namely the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies and string lensing of extragalactic galaxies, are not sensitive enough for low string tensions of $Gμ= 10^{-10}-10^{-7}$ that are needed to explain this putative signal. We show that strong gravitational lensing of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) by cosmic strings i…
A tiny fraction of observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be lensed. The time delays induced by the gravitational lensing are milliseconds to seconds if the point lenses are intermediate-mass black holes. The prompt emission of the lensed GRBs, in principle, should have repeated pulses with identical light curves and spectra but different fluxes and slightly offset positions. In this work, we search for such candidates within the GRBs detected by Fermi/GBM, Swift/BAT, and HXMT/HE and report the identification of an attractive event GRB 200716C that consists of two pulses. Both the autocorrelatio…
The study of astrophysical plasma lensing, such as in the case of extreme scattering events, has typically been conducted using the geometric limit of optics, neglecting wave effects. However, for the lensing of coherent sources such as pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs), wave effects can play an important role. Asymptotic methods, such as the so-called Eikonal limit, also known as the stationary phase approximation, have been used to include first-order wave effects; however, these methods fail at Stokes lines. Stokes lines are generic features of a variety of lens models, and are regions i…
Searching for Gamma Ray Bursts associated with CHIME Fast Radio bursts
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）；State Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台射电天文与技术国家重点实验室）；South-Western Institute for Astronomy Research, Yunnan University（云南大学西南天文研究所）
Probing Collapsed Dark Matter Halos with Fast Radio Bursts
City University of Hong Kong（香港城市大学）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Tongji University（同济大学）；The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）
We explore a novel search strategy for dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) such as primordial black holes or dense mini-halos in the mass range from $10^{-4}$ to 0.1 solar masses. These objects can gravitationally lens the signal of fast radio bursts (FRBs), producing a characteristic interference pattern in the frequency spectrum, similar to the previously studied femtolensing signal in gamma ray burst spectra. Unlike traditional searches using microlensing, FRB lensing will probe the abundance of MACHOs at cosmological distance scales (~Gpc) rather than just thei…
We present new Jansky Very Large Array observations of five pre-Swift gamma-ray bursts for which an ultraluminous (SFR > 100 M_sun/yr) dusty host galaxy had previously been inferred from radio or submillimetre observations taken within a few years after the burst. In four of the five cases we no longer detect any source at the host location to limits much fainter than the original observations, ruling out the existence of an ultraluminous galaxy hosting any of these GRBs. We continue to detect a source at the position of GRB 980703, but it is much fainter than it was a decade ago and the infer…
Nulling baryonic feedback in weak lensing surveys using cross-correlations with fast radio bursts
Miller Institute for Basic Research, University of California Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校米勒基础研究所）；Department of Physics, University of California Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校物理系）；Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校天文系）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学物理与天文学系）；MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research（麻省理工学院卡弗里天体物理学与空间研究所）；Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院物理系）；Leiden Observatory, Leiden University（莱顿大学莱顿天文台）；Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University（莱顿大学洛伦兹理论物理研究所）
Despite existing constraints, it remains possible that up to $35\%$ of all dark matter is comprised of compact objects, such as the black holes in the 10-100\,M$_\odot$ range whose existence has been confirmed by LIGO. The strong gravitational lensing of transients such as FRBs and GRBs has been suggested as a more sensitive probe for compact dark matter than intensity fluctuations observed in microlensing experiments. Recently ASKAP has reported burst substructure down to $15μ$s timescales in FRBs in the redshift range $0.3-0.5$. We investigate here the implications of this for the detectabil…
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) represent an exciting frontier in the study of gravitational lensing, due to their brightness, extragalactic nature, and the compact, coherent characteristics of their emission. In a companion work [Kader, Leung+2022], we use a novel interferometric method to search for gravitationally lensed FRBs in the time domain using bursts detected by CHIME/FRB. There, we dechannelize and autocorrelate electric field data at a time resolution of 1.25 ns. This enables a search for FRBs whose emission is coherently deflected by gravitational lensing around a foreground compact obje…
Magnetar Fireballs and Short Bursts: Curved Spacetime Lensing, QED Effects, Spectra, Polarization, and Impulse Responses
University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, NASA/GSFC（NASA/GSFC空间科学与技术研究探索中心）；Rice University（莱斯大学）；Washington University in St. Louis（华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；University of Maryland, Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩县分校）；University of Toulouse（图卢兹大学）
The number of identified Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) is increasing rapidly with current and future facilities. Strongly lensed FRBs are expected to be found as well, which can provide precise time delays and thus have rich applications in cosmology and fundamental physics. However, the radio signal of lensed FRBs will be deflected by plasma in lens galaxies in addition to gravity. Such deflections by both gravity and plasma will cause frequency dependent time delays, which are different from the dispersion delay and the geometric delay caused by gravitational lensing. Depending on the lensing and…
Plasma lensing is the refraction of low-frequency electromagnetic rays due to cold free electrons in the universe. For sources at a cosmological distance, there is observational evidence of elongated, complex plasma structures along the line of sight requiring a multi-lens-plane description. To investigate the limits of single-plane plasma lensing, we set up a double-plane lens with a projected Gaussian electron density in each lens plane. We compare double-plane scenarios with corresponding effective single-plane configurations. Our results show how double-plane lenses can be distinguished fr…
The gravitational field of compact objects, such as primordial black holes, can create multiple images of background sources. For transients such as fast radio bursts (FRBs), these multiple images can be resolved in the time domain. Under certain circumstances, these images not only have similar burst morphologies but are also phase-coherent at the electric field level. With a novel dechannelization algorithm and a matched filtering technique, we search for repeated copies of the same electric field waveform in observations of FRBs detected by the FRB backend of the Canadian Hydrogen Mapping I…
Due to differing gravitational potentials and path lengths, gravitational lensing induces time delays between multiple images of a source which, for solar mass objects, is of order $\sim10^{-5}$ seconds. If an astrophysically compact source, such as a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), is observed through a region with a high optical depth of such microlensing masses, this gravitational lensing time delay can be imprinted on short timescale transient signals. In this paper, we consider the impact of the parity of the macroimage on the resultant microlensing time delays. It is found that this parity is di…
The sustained gamma-ray emission (SGRE) events from the Sun are associated with an ultrafast (2000 km/s or greater) halo coronal mass ejection (CME) and a type II radio burst in the decameter-hectometric (DH) wavelengths. The SGRE duration is linearly related to the type II burst duration indicating that >300 MeV protons required for SGREs are accelerated by the same shock that accelerates tens of keV electrons that produce type II bursts. When magnetically well connected, the associated solar energetic particle (SEP) event has a hard spectrum, indicating copious acceleration of high-energy pr…
Strong lensing of Fast Radio Bursts (FBRs) has been proposed as a relatively clean probe of primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter. Recently, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) published a first catalog of 536 FRBs, 62 of which are from repeating sources. In light of this new data, we re-examine the prospects to constrain the abundance of PBHs via FRBs. Extending previous forecasts, we calculate a PBH dark matter bound using the intrinsic burst width and a calibrated flux-ratio threshold per FRB. In addition, we take into account the uncertainty in the relation between…
