Using Fast Radio Bursts to Map Matter in the Universe

Professor of Astronomy Vikram Ravi talks about fast radio bursts, or FRBs, and how these intense flashes of radio waves can be used to map out the distribution of ordinary matter in our universe. In a new Nature Astronomy study, Ravi and his team show how these FRB measurements can be used to help study some of the biggest questions about the universe, including the nature of dark energy, dark matter, and ghostly particles called neutrinos.

In the future, Caltech's Deep Synoptic Array (DSA), a powerful radio telescope scheduled to be built by 2029 in a remote valley in Nevada, is expected to find tens of thousands of FRBs, vastly enhancing the cosmic events' power to improve cosmological measurements.

More info: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/fast-radio-bursts-poised-to-help-with-biggest-cosmic-mysteries