Peryton (astronomy)

In radio astronomy, perytons are short radio signals with a length of a few milliseconds that are probably exclusively of terrestrial origin. The perytons are named after mythical creatures .

Terrestrial interference is always a problem in radio astronomy . Probably, these signals are sidelobes captured the antenna. The perytons occur at great heights above the horizon and show no frequency dispersion in contrast to the closely related Fast Radio Bursts . Perytons often appear as a series of periodic bursts. A recombination of three charge carriers or the synchrotron radiation of a decaying magnetic field were discussed as mechanisms of origin .

Potential sources of perytons are:

Signals from aircraft
Lightning bolts in the ionosphere
Solar flares
Terrestrial gamma-ray bursts
Narrow bipolar pulse. These are electrical discharges between clouds at great heights with an output of a few hundred gigawatts

The only proven source of perytons to date are commercial microwave ovens . When opening a device that is in operation, the safety shutdown only triggers after a few milliseconds. The microwave radiation emitted during this time is possibly picked up as a signal by the sensitive antennas, as researchers at the Australian Parkes Observatory were able to demonstrate. It is unclear, however, whether this is the only cause of perytons.

literature

Mohammad Danish Khan: Perytons and their Possible Sources . In: Astrophysics. Solar and Stellar Astrophysics . 2014, arxiv : 1404.5080v1 .
JI Katz: What Perytons Aren't, and Might Be . In: Astrophysics. Solar and Stellar Astrophysics . 2014, arxiv : 1403.0637v1 .
SR Kulkarni, EO Ofek, JD Neill, Z. Zheng, M. Juric: Giant Sparks at Cosmological Distances? In: Astrophysics. Solar and Stellar Astrophysics . 2014, arxiv : 1402.4766v1 .
Pascal Saint-Hilaire, Arnold O. Benz, Christian Monstein: Short-duration Radio Bursts with Apparent Extragalactic Dispersion . In: Astrophysics. Solar and Stellar Astrophysics . 2014, arxiv : 1402.0664v1 .
Manjari Bagchi, Angela Cortes Nieves, Maura McLaughlin: A search for dispersed radio bursts in archival Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey data . In: Astrophysics. Solar and Stellar Astrophysics . 2012, arxiv : 1207.2992v2 .

Individual evidence

^ Petroff et al .: Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope . 2015, arxiv : 1504.02165v1 [astro-ph.IM] .
↑ Dirk Lorenzen: Microwaves from the depths of the kitchen. In: Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved July 12, 2019 .
^ Bob Yirka: Mystery of Peryton Reception at Australian Observatory solved: It's from microwave ovens. In: Phys.org. April 13, 2015, accessed on July 12, 2019 .

[petroff-1] Petroff et al .: Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope . 2015, arxiv : 1504.02165v1 [astro-ph.IM] .

[2] Dirk Lorenzen: Microwaves from the depths of the kitchen. In: Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved July 12, 2019 .

[3] Bob Yirka: Mystery of Peryton Reception at Australian Observatory solved: It's from microwave ovens. In: Phys.org. April 13, 2015, accessed on July 12, 2019 .