Sub-second periodicity in a fast radio burst

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration flashes of radio waves that are visible at distances of billions of light years 1 . The nature of their progenitors and their emission mechanism remain open astrophysical questions 2 . Here we report the detection of the multicomponent FRB 20191221A and the identification of a periodic separation of 216.8(1) ms between its components, with a significance of 6.5 σ . The long (roughly 3 s) duration and nine or more components forming the pulse profile make this source an outlier in the FRB population. Such short periodicity provides strong evidence for a neutron-star origin of the event. Moreover, our detection favours emission arising from the neutron-star magnetosphere 3 , 4 , as opposed to emission regions located further away from the star, as predicted by some models 5 .