A fast radio burst from the first 3 billion years of the Universe

Manisha Caleb; Themiya Nanayakkara; Benjamin Stappers; Inés Pastor-Marazuela; Ilya S. Khrykin; Karl Glazebrook; Nicolas Tejos; J. Xavier Prochaska; Kaustubh Rajwade; Lluis Mas-Ribas; Laura N. Driessen; Wen-fai Fong; Alexa C. Gordon; Jordan Hoffmann; Clancy W. James; Fabian Jankowski; Lordrick Kahinga; Michael Kramer; Sunil Simha; Ewan D. Barr; Mechiel Christiaan Bezuidenhout; Xihan Deng; Zeren Lin; Lachlan Marnoch; Christopher D. Martin; Anya Nugent; Kavya Shaji; Jun Tian

arXiv · 2508.01648

A fast radio burst from the first 3 billion years of the Universe

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Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are enigmatic millisecond-duration signals which encode otherwise unattainable information on the plasma which permeates our Universe, providing insights into magnetic fields and gas distributions. Here we report the discovery of FRB 20240304B originating at redshift 2.148 +/- 0.001 corresponding to just 3 billion years after the Big Bang. FRB 2024030 was detected with the MeerKAT radio telescope and localized to a low-mass, clumpy, star forming galaxy using the James Webb Space Telescope. This discovery doubles the redshift reach of localized FRBs and probes ionized baryons across ~80% of cosmic history. Its sightline, intersecting the Virgo Cluster and a foreground group, reveals magnetic field complexity over many gigaparsec scales. Our observations establish FRB activity during the peak of cosmic star formation and demonstrate that FRBs can probe galaxy formation during the most active era in cosmic time.

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Manisha Caleb, Themiya Nanayakkara, Benjamin Stappers, Inés Pastor-Marazuela, Ilya S. Khrykin, Karl Glazebrook, Nicolas Tejos, J. Xavier Prochaska, Kaustubh Rajwade, Lluis Mas-Ribas, Laura N. Driessen, Wen-fai Fong, Alexa C. Gordon, Jordan Hoffmann, Clancy W. James, Fabian Jankowski, Lordrick Kahinga, Michael Kramer, Sunil Simha, Ewan D. Barr, Mechiel Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Xihan Deng, Zeren Lin, Lachlan Marnoch, Christopher D. Martin, Anya Nugent, Kavya Shaji, Jun Tian. 2025-08-03. A fast radio burst from the first 3 billion years of the Universe. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01648

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