Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Femtosecond Laser Filaments for Use in Sub-Diffraction-Limited Imaging and Remote Sensing
Published on: April 25, 2019
Lensing of Fast Radio Bursts as a Probe of Compact Dark Matter
Julian B Muñoz1, Ely D Kovetz1, Liang Dai2
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
Abstract:
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_{⊙} window. We show that strong gravitational lensing of extragalactic fast radio bursts (FRBs) by MACHOs of masses larger than ∼20 M_{⊙} would result in repeated FRBs with an observable time delay. Strong lensing of a FRB by a lens of mass M_{L} induces two images, separated by a typical time delay ∼few×(M_{L}/30 M_{⊙}) msec. Considering the expected FRB detection rate by upcoming experiments, such as canadian hydrogen intensity mapping experiment (CHIME), of 10^{4} FRBs per year, we should observe from tens to hundreds of repeated bursts yearly, if MACHOs in this window make up all the dark matter. A null search for echoes with just 10^{4} FRBs would constrain the fraction f_{DM} of dark matter in MACHOs to f_{DM}≲0.08 for M_{L}≳20 M_{⊙}.
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Momentum And Radiation Pressure
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape...
Atomic Nuclei: Larmor Precession Frequency
Protein Dynamics in Living Cells
Fluorescent recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) is a fluorescent-protein-based detection technique used to quantify protein movement rates within the cell. This method exposes a small portion of the cell to an intense laser beam. The laser beam causes permanent photobleaching of the fluorophore-tagged proteins in the exposed region. As the bleached...
The de Broglie Wavelength

