Synchrotron masers and fast radio bursts

Gabriele Ghisellini

Published 2016-09-15Version 1

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), with a typical duration of 1 ms and 1 Jy flux density at GHz frequencies, have brightness temperatures exceeding 1e33 K, requiring a coherent emission process. This can be achieved by bunching particles in volumes smaller than the typical wavelength, but this may be challenging. Alternatively, we can have maser emission. Under certain conditions, the synchrotron stimulated emission process can be more important than true absorption, and a synchrotron maser can be created. This occurs when the emitting electrons have a very narrow distribution of pitch angles and energies. This process overcomes the difficulties of having extremely dense bunches of particles and relaxes the light crossing time limits, since there is no simple relation between the actual size of the source and the observed variability timescale.