Radio Transients Over a Wide Range of Timescales

Burst phenomena, spanning a wide range of timescales, are ubiquitous in astrophysics, from less than a millisecond for Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) to several years for certain maser flares. Understanding their origins and underlying physical processes is a major goal of contemporary astrophysics. Recently, we have applied Dicke’s superradiance, a coherent quantum mechanical radiation mechanism, to the physics of the interstellar medium (ISM) to explain some of these burst phenomena. Although first proposed by R. H. Dicke in 1954 and studied in laboratories for decades, Dicke's superradiance has remained largely unnoticed by astronomers until recently. In this presentation, I will focus on maser flares, present observational evidence for superradiance, and demonstrate how, under certain conditions, a region initially hosting a maser can transition to a superradiant regime. I will also showcase modeling of periodic flares observed in the 6.7 GHz methanol transition in the star-forming regions G22.356+0.066 and G9.62+0.20E, alongside other examples.

Radio Transients Over a Wide Range of Timescales Presentations