Abstract:

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short (duration ~ ms) but intense (flux ~ Jy) flashes, generally believed to be of extragalactic origin due to their high dispersion measures, which appear in the GHz-band. The detection of multiple bursts from certain sources (~200 in 6 yrs for FRB 121102) indicates that at least a subclass of FRBs result from transient outbursts of young, compact objects. We discuss some of the statistics surrounding the repeating bursts, and explore what this might indicate about the progenitors. We consider the possibility that repeating FRBs are energetically sourced by crustal fractures in young (~ 100 yrs) magnetars, whose crust quasi-periodically yields due to strong, and topologically complicated, magnetic stresses, which build up as the field evolves due to Hall drift and Ohmic diffusion.