The artificial intelligence allows to discover mysterious cosmic radio bursts



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According to scientists, the artificial intelligence system has discovered 72 new radio bursts from an unknown source about three billion light years from Earth. The radio bursts only last a few milliseconds and would come from distant galaxies. However, the source of these emissions is still unclear.

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Theories range from highly magnetized neutron stars blown by gas flows from a near supermassive black hole, to suggestions that bursting properties correspond to the signatures of technologies developed by an advanced civilization.

"This work is exciting not only because it helps us to understand the dynamic behavior of fast radio bursts in more detail, but also to use machine learning to detect signals missed by conventional algorithms," says Andrew Siemion. principal investigator. for Breakthrough Listen, an initiative led by the University of California at Berkeley in the United States to find signs of intelligent life in the universe.

Breakthrough Listen also applies the successful machine learning algorithm to find new types of signals that can come from extraterrestrial civilizations.

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While most fast radio bursts are unique, the source here, FRB 121102, is one of a kind with regard to issuing repeated bursts. This behavior has attracted the attention of many astronomers in the hope of pinpointing the cause and extreme physics involved in fast radio gusts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that collected radio signals from the data were recorded over a five-hour period on August 26, 2017 by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.

An earlier analysis of the 400 terabytes of data employed standard computer algorithms to identify 21 bursts during this period.

All were seen in one hour, suggesting that the source alternates between periods of rest and frenetic activity, said postdoctoral researcher Vishal Gajjar, of the University of Berkeley.

The researchers then developed a powerful new machine-learning algorithm and reanalyzed the data for 2017, uncovering another 72 gusts that were not detected at the start.

This brings the total number of gusts detected from FRB 121102 to around 300 since its discovery in 2012.

"This work is only the beginning of the use of these powerful methods to detect radio transients," Zhang said.

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