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Updated: Sep 4, 2025

Rapid Repetition Rate Fluctuation Measurement of Soliton Crystals in a Microresonator
Published on: December 15, 2021
Sub-second periodicity in a fast radio burst
, Bridget C Andersen1,2, Kevin Bandura3,4
1Department of Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Abstract:
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration flashes of radio waves that are visible at distances of billions of light years1. The nature of their progenitors and their emission mechanism remain open astrophysical questions2. Here we report the detection of the multicomponent FRB 20191221A and the identification of a periodic separation of 216.8(1) ms between its components, with a significance of 6.5σ. The long (roughly 3 s) duration and nine or more components forming the pulse profile make this source an outlier in the FRB population. Such short periodicity provides strong evidence for a neutron-star origin of the event. Moreover, our detection favours emission arising from the neutron-star magnetosphere3,4, as opposed to emission regions located further away from the star, as predicted by some models5.
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