EventsPast talk
Santa Barbara Astro Lunch
Dylan Leonard Jow
Stanford
Probing the physics and morphology of the cool CGM with FRB scattering
- When
- Wednesday 4 Feb 2026
12:00–1:00 pm PST - Where
- Broida 3302
- Series
- A weekly informal gathering of UCSB, LCO and KITP astrophysicists to hear about current research by locals and visitors.
From the calendar
Transverse inhomogeneities in electron density scatter radio waves. In this talk, I will give an overview of scattering theory for fast radio bursts (FRBs). I will argue that FRB scattering will be a unique probe of the cool component of the circumgalactic medium (CGM), probing extremely small scales down to ~au-scales. In particular, I will show how the statistics of FRB scattering are sensitive to the morphology of the gas (i.e. whether the gas forms spherical, filamentary, or sheet-like structures). I will also discuss prospects for detecting FRB scattering in the CGM and disentangling it from other sources of scattering.