Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration pulses of cosmological origin first discovered at WVU in 2007. Currently over 4,000 are known and come from random positions on the sky, with over 100 having been identified with external galaxies of different types.
While the origins of FRBs are still not fully understood, it is very likely that a significant fraction of them are produced by magnetars––highly magnetized neutron stars––which are known to emit powerful radio flares. Current work by GWAC faculty and students involves the discovery and characterization of the FRB phenomenon. A key part of this work are the contributions by GWAC faculty Kevin Bandura and Emmanuel Fonseca to the development of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) which has just released its second catalog of FRBs.
Researchers in GWAC on the CHIME Fast Radio Burst team were also recently awarded the 2022 Lancelot M. Berkeley − New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy. In 2023, GWAC faculty Maura McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer were awarded the Shaw Prize in Astronomy in recognition of their contributions to the discovery of this field.