2020/02/29 by Wei‐Min Gu, Wei-Min Gu, Tuan Yi +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Duty cycle #Electron #Fast radio burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Light curve #Magnetic field #Magnetic reconnection #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Orbital eccentricity #Orbital period #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Roche lobe #Stars #White dwarf #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/staa1914
5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2020/06/30 · openalex publication_date 2020/07/03 · arxiv updated 2020/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
ABSTRACT We propose a compact binary model with an eccentric orbit to explain periodically active fast radio burst (FRB) sources, where the system consists of a neutron star (NS) with strong dipolar magnetic fields and a magnetic white dwarf (WD). In our model, the WD fills its Roche lobe at periastron, and mass transfer occurs from the WD to the NS around this point. The accreted material may be fragmented into a number of parts, which arrive at the NS at different times. The fragmented magnetized material may trigger magnetic reconnection near the NS surface. The electrons can be accelerated to an ultrarelativistic speed, and therefore the curvature radiation of the electrons can account for the burst activity. In this scenario, the duty cycle of burst activity is related to the orbital period of the binary. We show that such a model may work for duty cycles roughly from 10 min to 2 d. For the recently reported 16.35-d periodicity of FRB 180916.J0158 + 65, our model does not naturally explain such a long duty cycle, since an extremely high eccentricity (e > 0.95) is required.