Fast Radio Bursts

The era of fast radio bursts (FRBs) was open in 2007, when a very bright radio pulse of unknown origin was discovered occasionally in the archival data of Parkes telescope. Over the past 15 years, this mysterious phenomenon has caught substantial attention among the scientific community and becomes one of the hottest topics in high-energy astrophysics. The total number of events has a dramatic increase to a few hundred recently, benefiting from new dedicated surveys and improved observational techniques. Our understanding of these bursts has been undergoing a revolutionary growth with observational breakthroughs announced consistently. In this chapter, we will give a comprehensive introduction of FRBs, including the latest progress. Starting from the basics, we will go through population study, inherent physical mechanism, and all the way to the application in cosmology. Plenty of open questions exist right now and there is more surprise to come in this active young field.