Hessels Lab

Research focus

ERC Advanced Grant · 2022

EuroFlash: exploring the origins of fast radio bursts using a network of European radio telescopes

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) present astronomers with a compelling mystery: what is creating these brilliant but ephemeral flashes that travel billions of lightyears before reaching Earth? Whatever is producing the FRBs, it requires an extreme energy density and the conditions for `laser-like’ coherent radio emission to be generated. While recent discoveries show that magnetars are a leading contender, the heterogeneous properties of the known FRB sample strongly suggest that there are multiple FRB source types. If so, then we have multiple mysterious FRB origins to uncover. Due to the great interest in solving this puzzle, enormous progress has been made in recent years. There are now hundreds…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.