Magnetic field reversal in the turbulent environment around a repeating fast radio burst

Reshma Anna-Thomas; Liam Connor; Shi Dai; Yi Feng; Sarah Burke-Spolaor; Paz Beniamini; Yuan-Pei Yang; Yong-Kun Zhang; Kshitij Aggarwal; Casey J Law; Di Li; Chenhui Niu; Shami Chatterjee; Marilyn Cruces; Ran Duan; Miroslav D Filipovic; George Hobbs; Ryan S Lynch; Chenchen Miao; Jiarui Niu; Stella K Ocker; Chao-Wei Tsai; Pei Wang; Mengyao Xue; Ju-Mei Yao; Wenfei Yu; Bing Zhang; Lei Zhang; Shiqiang Zhu; Weiwei Zhu

doi:10.1126/science.abo6526

Magnetic field reversal in the turbulent environment around a repeating fast radio burst

Science. 2023 May 12;380(6645):599-603. doi: 10.1126/science.abo6526. Epub 2023 May 11.

Authors

Reshma Anna-Thomas^#^{1

2}, Liam Connor^#^{3

4}, Shi Dai^#^{5

6

7}, Yi Feng^#⁸, Sarah Burke-Spolaor^#^{1

2}, Paz Beniamini^{9

10}, Yuan-Pei Yang¹¹, Yong-Kun Zhang⁶, Kshitij Aggarwal^{1

2}, Casey J Law^{3

4}, Di Li^{6

8

12

13}, Chenhui Niu⁶, Shami Chatterjee^{14

15}, Marilyn Cruces¹⁶, Ran Duan⁶, Miroslav D Filipovic⁵, George Hobbs⁷, Ryan S Lynch¹⁷, Chenchen Miao⁶, Jiarui Niu⁶, Stella K Ocker^{14

15}, Chao-Wei Tsai^{6

12

18}, Pei Wang⁶, Mengyao Xue⁶, Ju-Mei Yao¹⁹, Wenfei Yu²⁰, Bing Zhang^{21

22}, Lei Zhang⁶, Shiqiang Zhu⁸, Weiwei Zhu^{6

18}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.
² Center for Gravitational Waves and Cosmology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.
³ Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
⁴ Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California Institute of Technology, Big Pine, CA 93513, USA.
⁵ School of Science, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia.
⁶ National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
⁷ Australia Telescope National Facility, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation-Space and Astronomy, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia.
⁸ Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311121, China.
⁹ Department of Natural Sciences, Open University of Israel, Ra'anana 43107, Israel.
¹⁰ Astrophysics Research Center of the Open University, The Open University of Israel, Ra'anana 43537, Israel.
¹¹ South-Western Institute for Astronomy Research, Yunnan University, Kunming 650500, Yunnan, China.
¹² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
¹³ National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences-University of KwaZulu-Natal Computational Astrophysics Centre, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4000, South Africa.
¹⁴ Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
¹⁵ Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
¹⁶ Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, D-53121 Bonn, Germany.
¹⁷ Green Bank Observatory, Green Bank, WV 24401, USA.
¹⁸ Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 102206, China.
¹⁹ Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830011, China.
²⁰ Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 80 Nandan Road, Shanghai 200030, China.
²¹ Nevada Center for Astrophysics, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA.
²² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 37167388
DOI: 10.1126/science.abo6526

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief, intense flashes of radio waves from unidentified extragalactic sources. Polarized FRBs originate in highly magnetized environments. We report observations of the repeating FRB 20190520B spanning 17 months, which show that the FRB's Faraday rotation is highly variable and twice changes sign. The FRB also depolarizes below radio frequencies of about 1 to 3 gigahertz. We interpret these properties as being due to changes in the parallel component of the magnetic field integrated along the line of sight, including reversing direction of the field. This could result from propagation through a turbulent magnetized screen of plasma, located 10^-5 to [Formula: see text] parsecs from the FRB source. This is consistent with the bursts passing through the stellar wind of a binary companion of the FRB source.