Future of neutron star studies with fast radio bursts

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) were discovered only in 2007. However, the number of known events and sources of repeating bursts grows very rapidly. In the near future the number of events will be $\gtrsim 10^4$ and the number of repeaters $\gtrsim100$. Presently, there is a consensus that most of the sources of FRBs might be neutron stars (NSs) with large magnetic fields. These objects might have different origin as suggested by studies of their host galaxies which represent a very diverse sample: from regions of very active star formation to old globular clusters. Thus, in the following decade we expect to have a very large sample of events directly related to extragalactic magnetars of different origin. This might open new possibilities to probe various aspects of NS physics. In the review we briefly discuss the main directions of such future studies and summarize our present knowledge about FRBs and their sources.Comment: 21 pages, submitted to Particles, special issue "The Modern Physics of Compact Stars and Relativistic Gravity