Publication Date:
2016-02-26
Description:
In recent years, millisecond-duration radio signals originating in distant galaxies appear to have been discovered in the so-called fast radio bursts. These signals are dispersed according to a precise physical law and this dispersion is a key observable quantity, which, in tandem with a redshift measurement, can be used for fundamental physical investigations. Every fast radio burst has a dispersion measurement, but none before now have had a redshift measurement, because of the difficulty in pinpointing their celestial coordinates. Here we report the discovery of a fast radio burst and the identification of a fading radio transient lasting ~6 days after the event, which we use to identify the host galaxy; we measure the galaxy's redshift to be z = 0.492 +/- 0.008. The dispersion measure and redshift, in combination, provide a direct measurement of the cosmic density of ionized baryons in the intergalactic medium of OmegaIGM = 4.9 +/- 1.3 per cent, in agreement with the expectation from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, and including all of the so-called 'missing baryons'. The ~6-day radio transient is largely consistent with the radio afterglow of a short gamma-ray burst, and its existence and timescale do not support progenitor models such as giant pulses from pulsars, and supernovae. This contrasts with the interpretation of another recently discovered fast radio burst, suggesting that there are at least two classes of bursts.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Keane, E F -- Johnston, S -- Bhandari, S -- Barr, E -- Bhat, N D R -- Burgay, M -- Caleb, M -- Flynn, C -- Jameson, A -- Kramer, M -- Petroff, E -- Possenti, A -- van Straten, W -- Bailes, M -- Burke-Spolaor, S -- Eatough, R P -- Stappers, B W -- Totani, T -- Honma, M -- Furusawa, H -- Hattori, T -- Morokuma, T -- Niino, Y -- Sugai, H -- Terai, T -- Tominaga, N -- Yamasaki, S -- Yasuda, N -- Allen, R -- Cooke, J -- Jencson, J -- Kasliwal, M M -- Kaplan, D L -- Tingay, S J -- Williams, A -- Wayth, R -- Chandra, P -- Perrodin, D -- Berezina, M -- Mickaliger, M -- Bassa, C -- England -- Nature. 2016 Feb 25;530(7591):453-6. doi: 10.1038/nature17140.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Square Kilometre Array Organisation, Jodrell Bank Observatory, SK11 9DL, UK. ; Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Mail H29, PO Box 218, Victoria 3122, Australia. ; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), Australia. ; Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Astronomy and Space Science, Australia Telescope National Facility, PO Box 76, Epping, New South Wales 1710, Australia. ; International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia. ; Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Via della Scienza 5, I-09047 Selargius (CA), Italy. ; Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2611, Australia. ; Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie (MPIfR), Auf dem Hugel 69, D-53121 Bonn, Germany. ; Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. ; National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, New Mexico, USA. ; Department of Astronomy, the University of Tokyo, Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. ; National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2 Chome-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan. ; Department of Astronomical Science, SOKENDAI (Graduate University for the Advanced Study), Osawa, Mitaka 181-8588, Japan. ; Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 650 North A'ohoku Place, Hilo, Hawaii 96720, USA. ; Institute of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015, Japan. ; Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), Institutes for Advanced Study, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan. ; Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Konan University, 8-9-1 Okamoto, Kobe, Hyogo 658-8501, Japan. ; Cahill Center for Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. ; Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA. ; National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India. ; ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, NL-7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26911781" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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