Finding the missing baryons in the intergalactic medium with localized fast radio bursts

Understand

The missing baryon problem is one of the major unsolved problems in astronomy.

• Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright millisecond pulses with unknown origins.
• The dispersion measure of FRBs is defined as the electron column density along the line of sight, and accounts for every ionized baryon.
• Here we measure the baryon content of the Universe using 22 localized FRBs.