Neutron Stars' Universal Scaling Law Could Explain Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts

The discovery reveals a commonality in the rotation periods of neutron stars, potentially providing a link to the origin of Fast Radio Bursts.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Manchester have discovered a universal scaling law in neutron stars, including magnetars, that might explain mysterious Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs).
The law gives insight into how these sources produce radio emission and it may provide a link to the mysterious flashes of radio light, Fast Radio Bursts, that originate from the distant cosmos.
The research team found that the timescale of magnetars and that of the other types of neutron stars all follow the same universal relationship, scaling exactly with the rotation period.
The fact that a neutron star with a rotation period of less than a few milliseconds and one with a period of nearly 100 seconds behave like magnetars suggests that the intrinsic origin of the subpulse structure must be the same for all radio-loud neutron stars.
If at least some FRBs originate from magnetars, the timescale of the substructure in the burst might then tell us the rotation period of the underlying magnetar source.