Princeton University Special Seminar

The next generation of cosmological surveys like LSST, Euclid, and DESI will be limited by our understanding of galaxy formation and the diffuse, baryonic universe. Meanwhile, fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond duration radio transients which, despite their mysterious origin, are sensitive probes of the diffuse, ionized gas in and around galaxies. The race is on–fueled by Moore’s Law and the GPU/AI revolution–to build instruments capable of detecting these mysterious transients and pinpointing them with sufficient angular resolution to unlock their potential as probes of the diffuse universe and discover their origins.
I will outline my work transforming the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) into the world’s most powerful FRB detection and localization machine using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) at sub-GHz frequencies: a technique, abandoned decades ago, which we have revived for FRB localization. I will showcase some early science from CHIME and its VLBI stations, including the discovery and localization of the first FRB in a quiescent elliptical host, which challenges formation theories for FRBs invoking young stellar remnants. I will also show how FRBs can be used to map the unseen universe on all scales: from Jupiter-mass primordial black holes, to the ionized interstellar and circumgalactic media, to the baryonic suppression of the matter power spectrum on large scales. I will end by discussing the bright future of FRBs as an observational bridge between galaxy formation and cosmology, and the telescopes which will take us there.