2026ApJ...998..127L -
Astrophys. J., 998, 127 (2026/February-2)
The Role of Plasma Lensing in Fast Radio Bursts.
LI R.-N., WANG Y.-B., YI S.-X., ZHOU X. and WANG F.-Y.
Abstract (from CDS):
Growing evidence indicates that some fast radio bursts (FRBs) reside in dense, magnetoionic environments where extrinsic propagation effects can substantially reshape the observed signal. Within a 1D Gaussian plasma-lens framework, we show that small, monotonic variations in the incidence angle of the FRB wavefront naturally generate both downward and upward sub-burst frequency drifts. We further demonstrate that distinct lensed paths that probe different rotation measures (RMs) can produce orthogonal polarization-angle (PA) jumps at gigahertz frequencies. In this picture, a ∼90° PA transition requires only a modest RM contrast of order a few ×10 rad m–2 between the multiple images. The chromatic activity of FRB 20180916B-earlier and narrower activity windows at higher frequencies-can be explained as preferential magnification near the outer caustic. Finally, the intrinsic resolution of a plasma lens provides an upper limit on the transverse emission size: lenses located close to the source yield magnetospheric-scale constraints and offer a practical means of discriminating between inner- and outer-magnetospheric emission scenarios. These results suggest that plasma lensing could account for multiple complex observational features of FRBs and may play a nonnegligible role in modulating their observable properties.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
Radio bursts - Radio transient sources - Gravitational lensing
Simbad objects:
11
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