Fast radio bursts, magnetars and earthquakes: their "family feud"?
Abstract
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration cosmic transients whose origin remains elusive. Competing models invoke either earthquake-like processes or flare-like mechanisms. To discriminate between these scenarios, we develop a novel diagnostic, the Pincus-Lyapunov diagram (PLD), to characterize the energetic transients in the stochasticity-chaos phase space. We compile burst sequences from five representative FRBs (FRB 20121102A, FRB 20190520B, FRB 20201124A, FRB 20220912A, and FRB 20240114A), together with those from magnetar flares (SGR J1550−5418, SGR J0501+4516, SGR 1806−20, SGR 1900+14, and SGR J1935+2154), pulsar glitches, solar flares, and earthquakes, and map them onto the PLD for comparative analysis. The resulting diagram shows that FRBs occupy a distinct region of the phase space. Specifically, a permutation test reveals a statistically significant difference in the distributions of magnetar flares and pulsar glitches compared to those of repeating FRBs (p-value ≃ 0.05). To examine whether temporal variations in source activity can shift a repeater's position in this phase space, we analyze the time evolution of the most prolific repeater, FRB~20240114A. For this repeating FRB, both Pincus Index and Lyapunov Exponent demonstrate statistically stable behaviour over the eight-month observation session, with Augmented Dickey--Fuller tests yielding p ≃ 1.78×10−3 and 9.91×10−3, respectively. By assembling the most comprehensive dataset to date, our work indicates that the trigger mechanisms of repeating FRBs are likely to be distinct from those driving magnetar flares, pulsar glitches, solar flares, and earthquakes.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{xu2026fast,
title = {{Fast radio bursts, magnetars and earthquakes: their "family feud"?}},
author = {Si-Lu Xu and Yong-Kun Zhang and Pei Wang and Di Li and Jun-Shuo Zhang and Tian-Cheng Lv and Yong-Feng Huang and Tian-Cong Wang and Long-Xuan Zhang and Pei-Xin Zhu and Jin-Huang Cao and Yi Feng and He Gao and Jian Li and Wan-Jin Lu and Chen-Chen Miao and Chen-Hui Niu and Qing-Yue Qu and Chao-Wei Tsai and Yi-Dan Wang and Wen-Ting Wang and Su-Ming Weng and Jia-Fu Wu and Ru-Shuang Zhao and Yuan-Chuan Zou and Yu-Hao Zhu and Ya-Biao Wang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.01855},
eprint = {2606.01855},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01855},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Fast radio bursts, magnetars and earthquakes: their "family feud"?
AU - Si-Lu Xu
AU - Yong-Kun Zhang
AU - Pei Wang
AU - Di Li
AU - Jun-Shuo Zhang
AU - Tian-Cheng Lv
AU - Yong-Feng Huang
AU - Tian-Cong Wang
AU - Long-Xuan Zhang
AU - Pei-Xin Zhu
AU - Jin-Huang Cao
AU - Yi Feng
AU - He Gao
AU - Jian Li
AU - Wan-Jin Lu
AU - Chen-Chen Miao
AU - Chen-Hui Niu
AU - Qing-Yue Qu
AU - Chao-Wei Tsai
AU - Yi-Dan Wang
AU - Wen-Ting Wang
AU - Su-Ming Weng
AU - Jia-Fu Wu
AU - Ru-Shuang Zhao
AU - Yuan-Chuan Zou
AU - Yu-Hao Zhu
AU - Ya-Biao Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.01855
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01855
AB - Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration cosmic transients whose origin remains elusive. Competing models invoke either earthquake-like processes or flare-like mechanisms. To discriminate between these scenarios, we develop a novel diagnostic, the Pincus-Lyapunov diagram (PLD), to characterize the energetic transients in the stochasticity-chaos phase space. We compile burst sequences from five representative FRBs (FRB 20121102A, FRB 20190520B, FRB 20201124A, FRB 20220912A, and FRB 20240114A), together with those from magnetar flares (SGR J1550−5418, SGR J0501+4516, SGR 1806−20, SGR 1900+14, and SGR J1935+2154), pulsar glitches, solar flares, and earthquakes, and map them onto the PLD for comparative analysis. The resulting diagram shows that FRBs occupy a distinct region of the phase space. Specifically, a permutation test reveals a statistically significant difference in the distributions of magnetar flares and pulsar glitches compared to those of repeating FRBs (p-value ≃ 0.05). To examine whether temporal variations in source activity can shift a repeater's position in this phase space, we analyze the time evolution of the most prolific repeater, FRB~20240114A. For this repeating FRB, both Pincus Index and Lyapunov Exponent demonstrate statistically stable behaviour over the eight-month observation session, with Augmented Dickey--Fuller tests yielding p ≃ 1.78×10^−3 and 9.91×10^−3, respectively. By assembling the most comprehensive dataset to date, our work indicates that the trigger mechanisms of repeating FRBs are likely to be distinct from those driving magnetar flares, pulsar glitches, solar flares, and earthquakes.
ER -