RESEARCH / FAST RADIO BURSTS
Exploring burst activity and the environments of cosmic radio transients.
Fast radio bursts offer a way to study short-duration energy release and the magnetized material around compact objects. Our research connects FAST surveys and long-term monitoring with burst statistics, polarization, host-galaxy observations and reproducible analysis tools.
SCIENCE
Selected studies · 2021–2025
A FAST campaign recorded 1,652 bursts from FRB 20121102A. Their energy distribution exhibits a bimodal structure, offering a quantitative benchmark for models of burst activity and energy release. This study also characterizes the statistical behaviour of a well-sampled repeating source.
Li, D., Wang, P., Zhu, W. W., et al.
Discovered by CRAFTS and localized with follow-up observations, FRB 20190520B is associated with a compact persistent radio source in a dwarf galaxy. Its dense plasma environment makes it a useful target for studying how repeating FRBs and their immediate surroundings evolve.
Niu, C.-H., Aggarwal, K., Li, D., et al.
Polarization varies with observing frequency and with individual bursts. Measurements of depolarization and rare circularly polarized bursts provide complementary constraints on the magnetized plasma near repeating FRBs and on the propagation of their radiation. This entry brings together two studies published in 2022.
Feng, Y., Li, D., Yang, Y.-P., et al.; Feng, Y., Zhang, Y.-K., Li, D., et al.
Seventeen months of monitoring revealed large changes in the Faraday rotation of FRB 20190520B, including two sign reversals. The observations trace a changing line-of-sight magnetic field and are consistent with propagation through turbulent magnetized plasma, including a possible companion-star wind.
Anna-Thomas, R., Connor, L., Dai, S., et al.
Optical and near-infrared observations of FRB 20190520B and FRB 20240114A connect their activity to star-forming dwarf galaxies. Spectroscopy maps ionized gas and helps separate host-galaxy and foreground contributions to dispersion measure, linking the FRBs' environments with material along their sightlines.
Chen, X.-L., Tsai, C.-W., and collaborators.
METHODS & OPEN RESOURCES
From finding bursts to comparing their behaviour.
Compare transient-event sequences in a Pincus–Lyapunov diagram, using published reference values or your own time–energy data. The browser-based explorer connects earlier work on FRB time–energy statistics with a wider comparison of FRBs, magnetars, pulsar glitches, earthquakes and solar flares.
Zhang et al. (2024), Science Bulletin; Xu et al. (2026), SCPMA.
DRAFTS combines object detection and classification to search radio-telescope observations for short transients. Developed and tested with FAST data, the pipeline supports reproducible FRB searches through public code, models and training data, connecting burst discovery with detailed population studies.
Zhang, Y.-K., Li, D., Feng, Y., et al.
Blinkverse collects published FRB properties and dynamic spectra from multiple observatories. Parameter searches and interactive visualization support comparisons between bursts and repeating sources. Its accompanying paper describes the database structure and demonstrates statistical analyses using the collected observations.
Xu, J., Feng, Y., Li, D., et al.