On the magnetospheric origin of Repeating Fast Radio Bursts

Wei-Yang Wang, Renxin Xu, Xueying Zheng, Xuelei Chen

Published 2020-05-05Version 1

A bright radio burst was newly discovered in SGR 1935+2154, which exhibit time--frequency properties similar to repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs), suggesting a neutron star (NS) magnetospheric origin of FRBs. We propose an explanation of the time--frequency structures of sub-pulses of repeating FRBs based on the generic geometry within the framework of charged-bunching coherent curvature radiation in the magnetosphere of an NS. The sub-pulses in a radio burst come from bunches of charged particles moving along different magnetic field lines. Their radiation beam sweep across the line of sight at slightly different time, and those radiating at the more curved part tend to be seen earlier and at higher frequency. However, by considering bunches generated at slightly different times, we find there is also a small probability that the emission from the less curved part be seen earlier. We simulate the time--frequency structures by deriving various forms of the electric acceleration field in the magnetosphere. Such structure of sub-pulses is a natural consequence of coherent curvature radiation from an NS magnetosphere with sporadically, suddenly and violently triggered sparks. We apply this model to explain the time--frequency structures in two specific scenarios: the transient pulsar-like sparking from the inner gap region of an NS with a dipole configuration, and the stretched configuration by external trigger (the so-called ``cosmic comb'').