CfA: Fast Radio Burst "Afterglow" Was Actually a Flickering Black Hole

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CfA: Fast Radio Burst "Afterglow" Was Actually a Flickering Black Hole

Post by bystander » Mon Apr 04, 2016 6:31 pm

Fast Radio Burst "Afterglow" Was Actually a Flickering Black Hole
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | 2016 Apr 04
[img3="Observations by the NSF's Jansky Very Large Array, pictured here, show that a suspected fast radio burst afterglow is actually radio emission from an active galactic nucleus. (Credit: NRAO)"]https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/sites/www.c ... 1/base.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Last February a team of astronomers reported detecting an afterglow from a mysterious event called a fast radio burst, which would pinpoint the precise position of the burst's origin, a longstanding goal in studies of these mysterious events. These findings were quickly called into question by follow-up observations. New research by Harvard astronomers Peter Williams and Edo Berger shows that the radio emission believed to be an afterglow actually originated from a distant galaxy's core and was unassociated with the fast radio burst. ...

Most FRBs have been identified in archival data, making immediate follow-up impossible. The new event, FRB 150418, is only the second one to be identified in real time. Radio observations reported in Nature purportedly showed a fading radio afterglow associated with the FRB. That afterglow was used to link the FRB to a host galaxy located about 6 billion light-years from Earth. ...

The emission instead originates from an active galactic nucleus that is powered by a supermassive black hole. Dual jets blast outward from the black hole, and complex physical processes within those jets create a constant source of radio waves. ...

No precise localization for FRB 150418: claimed radio transient is AGN variability - P. K. G. Williams, E. Berger
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=35701
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