Fast Radio Bursts as Cosmological Probes

arXiv:2606.27714 · astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-06-26 · Read on arXiv

Manisha Caleb, Jéferson A. S. Fortunato, Steffen Hagstotz, Clancy W. James, Joscha N. Jahns-Schindler, Dylan Jow, Evan Keane, Koustav Konar, Yin-Zhe Ma, Daniele Michilli, Robert Reischke, Amit Seta, Priyanka Singh, Laura G. Spitler, Yidan Wang, Amanda Weltman, The SKA Transients SWG

astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-06-26

Comments: Published in Advancing Astrophysics with the SKAII(AASKAII),2026(arXiv:2606.20366). Report-no:AASKAII/Caleb02 Advancing Astrophysics with the SKAII (AASKAII) outlines the transformative scientific advances that will be enabled by the SKA telescopes

Code: https://github.com/FRBs/zdm

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The gist: Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief, coherent radio pulses of extragalactic origin.

Terminology

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief, coherent radio pulses of extragalactic origin. They typically last from microseconds to milliseconds and have energies large enough to be visible over cosmological distances. Since FRBs interact with free electrons along their paths, the original burst is dispersed (Dispersion Measure, DM) and broadened (scattering). Furthermore, the burst's polarization is altered by Faraday rotation. Consequently, FRBs are excellent probes of the cosmological distribution of baryons, the expansion of the Universe, magnetic fields, and minuscule effects of fundamental physics that accumulate over vast distances. This chapter is the second of a trilogy of FRB chapters and discusses FRBs as a standalone probe. We first introduce the foundation of FRB observables related to those questions. Next, we lay the groundwork for forecasting SKA's potential by describing the method to simulate the expected FRB population observable with the SKA. These synthetic FRB catalogues are then used to investigate the SKA's potential to probe the Universe's expansion rate and fundamental physics, such as the equivalence principle and the existence of massive photons. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility of tracing cosmic magnetic fields and investigating different dark matter candidates.

Sources

Related papers