Powerful radio flashes appear throughout the universe, lasting only fractions of a second but potentially carrying information that could help scientists solve some of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos, from the nature of dark matter and dark energy to the mass of neutrinos, known as “ghost particles”.

These phenomena are called fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are short and intense flashes of radio waves believed to be caused by rapidly rotating dead stars, such as magnetars, which have some of the strongest magnetic fields in the universe.

But their significance goes beyond their mysterious origin. As their waves travel billions of light years towards Earth, they pass through clouds of gas and dust spread between galaxies, changing the signal that reaches telescopes in a way that reveals the fingerprints of the matter they have passed through.

By analyzing these changes, scientists can better understand how matter is distributed in the universe and whether it is clumped or dispersed, which could help them study dark matter and dark energy, as well as determine the mass of neutrinos.

About 100 radio bursts reveal a surprise

A team of researchers led by scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Arizona analyzed about 100 fast radio bursts in the first study of its kind to use this phenomenon to measure the effect of what is known as “feedback” from galaxies on matter clustering over vast cosmic scales.

The results indicate that the energy emitted by galaxies, including the energy from supermassive black holes at their centers, affects the distribution of surrounding gas and makes it less dense.

The significance of this process lies in the fact that some of its effects may resemble those expected to be caused by massive neutrinos or certain models related to dark matter and dark energy. Therefore, measuring this effect independently helps scientists avoid confusing these different phenomena.

Vikram Ravi, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, said that fast radio bursts have become an important tool for studying the distribution of matter in the universe, and their data can enhance cosmological experiments that investigate the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and neutrino mass.

Why are these signals important?

Ordinary matter, which makes up stars, planets, and everything we see around us, accounts for only about 5% of the universe’s content of matter and energy. The rest is believed to be composed primarily of dark matter and dark energy.

The picture becomes even more complex with neutrinos, which are particles that interact very weakly with matter, to the extent that vast numbers of them constantly pass through our bodies without us feeling a thing.

For this reason, scientists are trying to use every possible means to track how matter is distributed throughout the universe. Fast radio bursts provide a unique opportunity because they act, in effect, as cosmic signals that carry traces of the environment they have passed through on their long journey to Earth, according to the website “space”.

Just the beginning

Researchers believe that what they have achieved is just the beginning of using fast radio bursts as a tool in cosmology. The team was able to extract important information from a sample comprising only about 100 bursts.

It is expected that these possibilities will expand significantly with the activation of the Deep Synoptic Array radio telescope array in Nevada in 2029, which is expected to observe tens of thousands of fast radio bursts.

With an increasing number of such signals being observed, scientists hope to build a more accurate map of matter distributed between galaxies, which may help separate the effects of dark matter, dark energy and neutrinos from the effects of processes occurring within galaxies themselves. The study was published in “Nature Astronomy”.