2020MNRAS.497.1001S

A recent discovery of the periodic activity of the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 180916.J0158+65 in the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) hints at possible origin of the FRB from a freely precessing neutron star with a magnetar magnetic field of about 10¹⁶ G. However, the absence of simultaneously detected high-energy emission in the Swift and AGILE observations imposes stringent constraints on the field magnitude and questions the possibility of such a progenitor. We show that consideration of forced precession of a neutron star does not encounter the difficulty. This kind of precession takes place even if the neutron star is not deformed and is brought about by the anomalous moment of electromagnetic forces induced by stellar rotation and determined by non-corotational currents. Contrary to what is expected for the currents of corotation, the anomalous torque calculated by the direct method appears to be non-zero. If the observed 16.35-d period corresponds to the period of stellar precession, the inferred internal magnetic field appears to be about 6 x 10¹⁴ G for rotational period 1 s. For another possibly periodic FRB 121102 with 157-d period, the magnetic field is even lower, 2 x 10¹⁴ G, thereby justifying earlier considerations and not ruling out the hypothesis of FRB origin from precessing neutron stars.