Fast Radio Bursts from the Decay of Cosmic String Cusps

Understand

We explore the possibility that Fast Radio Bursts are due to the annihilation of cusps on cosmic string loops.

• We compute the energy released in the annihilation events in the radio region, the expected event rate, and the time scale of the bursts.
• We find that the energy and event rates are sufficiently high and the time scale is sufficiently small to explain the current data.
• We predict how the event rate will change as the resolution of telescopes improves.