A Highly Variable Magnetized Environment in a Pulsar Binary resembling Fast Radio Bursts

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short, intense extragalactic radio bursts of unknown origin. Recent polarimetric studies have shown that a noticeable fraction of the repeating FRBs display irregular, short-time variations of the Faraday rotation measure (RM). Moreover, evidence for rare propagation effects such as Faraday conversion and polarized attenuation is seen in at least one FRB repeater. Together, they suggest a highly variable magneto-active circum-burst environment. In this paper, we report similar behavior in a globular cluster pulsar binary system PSR B1744-24A. We observe irregular fast changes of RM with both signs at random orbital phases as well as profile changes of the circular polarization when the pulsar emission passes close to the companion. The latter provides strong evidence for Faraday conversion and circularly polarized attenuation. These similarities between PSR B1744-24A and some FRB repeaters, as well as the possible binary-produced long-term periodicity of two active repeaters, and the discovery of a nearby FRB in a globular cluster, where pulsar binaries are common, all suggest that some fraction of FRBs have binary companions.

References in corpus (13)

• Possible periodic activity in the repeating FRB 121102
• Diverse polarization angle swings from a repeating fast radio burst source
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• Rotation measure variations in Galactic Centre pulsars
• A sudden dramatic change and recovery of magneto-environment of a repeating fast radio burst
• A 34 Yr Timing Solution of the Redback Millisecond Pulsar Terzan 5A
• Reciprocating Magnetic Fields in the Pulsar Wind Observed from the Black Widow Pulsar J1720-0534
• Convective dynamos of black widow companions
• Mining the time axis with TRON. I. Millisecond pulsars in Omega Centauri, Terzan 5 and 47 Tucanae detected through MeerKAT interferometric imaging
• A Comprehensive Study of the Energy and Redshift Distributions of the Fast Radio Burst Population Based on the First CHIME/FRB Catalog
• Prediction of Multi-Wavelength Afterglows Associated with FRB 20200120E and FRB 20201124A