A sudden change and recovery in the magnetic environment around a repeating fast radio burst
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration radio transients from extragalactic sources. Some repeating FRBs exhibit variations in their Faraday rotation measure (RM) due to changes in their magneto-ionic environment. We report magneto-ionic variations of FRB 20220529, a repeating FRB from a disk galaxy at redshift 0.18. For the first 17 months of observations, the RM had a median of 17 radians per square meter (rad m<sup>-2</sup>) and a scatter of 101 rad m<sup>-2</sup>. In December 2023, the RM jumped to 1977 ± 84 rad m<sup>-2</sup>, then gradually returned to typical values within 2 weeks. This sudden RM variation indicates that a dense magnetized clump of plasma passed across the line of sight. We discuss potential explanations, including a coronal mass ejection from a companion star, high plasma turbulence, or binary orbital motion.
Authors
- Chong Niu
- Jin-Jun Geng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9648-7295)
- X. L. Chen
- Kaitlyn Shin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6823-2073)
- Peng Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-7857)
- Zhifeng Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5591-8175)
- C. J. Law
- T. R. Sun
- B. J. Wang
- Y. K. Zhang
- Rui Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4300-121X)
- J. R. Niu
- Dongzi Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7931-0607)
- Songbo Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2366-219X)
- C. F. Zhang
- Ryan Mckinven (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7348-6900)
- Dong Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4314-5686)
- Zi-Gao Dai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-8585)
- Yibin Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0241-670X)
- Xue-Feng Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6299-1263)
- Di Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6118-7401)
- Xuan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8750-0742)
- George Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7271-1368)
- Yan Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3933-5583)
- Chen‐Ming Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3509-1382)
- B. Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6097-1878)
- C. W. Tsai
- Xiaoli Yang
- H. Xu
- L. Hu
- R. Anna-Thomas
- Y. Li
- D. Xiao
- D. J. Zhou
- J. L. Han
- Y. P. Yang
- K. J. Lee
- W. W. Zhu
Institutions
- West Virginia University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Australia Telescope National Facility (AU)
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (US)
- Guizhou University (CN)
- Anhui University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Yunnan University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Princeton University (US)
- Peking University (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (CN)
- Purple Mountain Observatory (CN)
- Guangzhou University (CN)
- National Time Service Center (CN)
- Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences (CN)
- Zhejiang Lab (CN)
- Astronomy and Space (AU)
- National Astronomical Observatories (CN)
- McGill University (CA)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2026-01-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq3225
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 47.65