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Abstract
<p class="first" id="d1253324e40">Magnetars are highly magnetized young neutron stars
that occasionally produce enormous
bursts and flares of X-rays and γ-rays1. Of the approximately thirty magnetars currently
known in our Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, five have exhibited transient radio
pulsations2,3. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration bursts of radio waves
arriving from cosmological distances4, some of which have been seen to repeat5-8.
A leading model for repeating FRBs is that they are extragalactic magnetars, powered
by their intense magnetic fields9-11. However, a challenge to this model is that FRBs
must have radio luminosities many orders of magnitude larger than those seen from
known Galactic magnetars. Here we report the detection of an extremely intense radio
burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154 using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity
Mapping Experiment (CHIME) FRB project. The fluence of this two-component bright radio
burst and the estimated distance to SGR 1935+2154 together imply a burst energy at
400 to 800 megahertz of approximately 3 × 1034 erg, which is three orders of magnitude
higher than the burst energy of any radio-emitting magnetar detected thus far. Such
a burst coming from a nearby galaxy (at a distance of less than approximately 12 megaparsecs)
would be indistinguishable from a typical FRB. However, given the large gaps in observed
energies and activity between the brightest and most active FRB sources and what is
observed for SGR 1935+2154-like magnetars, more energetic and active sources-perhaps
younger magnetars-are needed to explain all observations.
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