Letter to the Editor

Rotation and dispersion measure evolution of repeating fast radio bursts propagating through a magnetar’s flare ejecta

Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210023, PR China

^⋆ Corresponding author: dxiao@pmo.ac.cn

Received: 14 March 2025
Accepted: 28 April 2025

Abstract

Rotation measure (RM) and dispersion measure (DM) are characteristic properties of fast radio bursts (FRBs) that contain important information of their source environment. The time evolution of the RM and DM is more inclined to be ascribed to local plasma in the host galaxy, rather than the intergalactic medium or free electrons in the Milky Way. A sudden, drastic RM change was recently reported for an active repeating FRB 20220529, implying that some kind of mass ejection happened near the source. In this work, I suggest that magnetar flare ejecta could play this role and give rise to the significant RM change. I introduce a toy structured ejecta model and calculate the contribution to RM and DM by a typical flare event. I find that this model could aptly reproduce the RM behavior of FRB 20220529 under reasonable parameters and similar sudden changes are expected for as long as this source maintains its activity.