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Fast radio burst repeaters produced via Kozai-Lidov feeding of neutron stars in binary systems

Authors :
Joseph Silk
Valentin Decoene
Kumiko Kotera
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (IAP)
Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel [Bruxelles] (VUB)
Source :
Astronomy and Astrophysics-A&A, Astronomy and Astrophysics-A&A, EDP Sciences, 2021, 645, pp.A122. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361/202038975⟩
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

Neutron stars are likely surrounded by gas, debris, and asteroid belts. Kozai-Lidov perturbations, induced by a distant, but gravitationally bound companion, can trigger the infall of such orbiting bodies onto a central compact object. These effects could lead to the emission of fast radio bursts (FRBs), for example by asteroid-induced magnetic wake fields in the wind of the compact object. A few percent of binary neutron star systems in the Universe, such as neutron star-main sequence star, neutron star-white dwarf, double neutron star, and neutron star-black hole systems, can account for the observed non-repeating FRB rates. More remarkably, we find that wide and close companion orbits lead to non-repeating and repeating sources, respectively, and they allow for one to compute a ratio between repeating and non-repeating sources of a few percent, which is in close agreement with the observations. Three major predictions can be made from our scenario, which can be tested in the coming years: 1) most repeaters should stop repeating after a period between 10 years to a few decades, as their asteroid belts become depleted; 2) some non-repeaters could occasionally repeat, if we hit the short period tail of the FRB period distribution; and 3) series of sub-Jansky level short radio bursts could be observed as electromagnetic counterparts of the mergers of binary neutron star systems.<br />21 pages, 7 figures, 3 appendices, accepted in A&A (November 26 2020)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00046361
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Astronomy and Astrophysics-A&A, Astronomy and Astrophysics-A&A, EDP Sciences, 2021, 645, pp.A122. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361/202038975⟩
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....5172daf4bfa79991dc9c18c212c9fcb0
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038975⟩