Colloquium: What can we learn from radio magnetars?

© Gregory Desvignes

Magnetars are young and highly magnetized neutron stars, powered by the decay of their large magnetic field. They exhibit a wide variety of X-ray activity but only a fraction of them are known to emit in radio waves. Since the discovery of an extremely bright radio burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, magnetars are now widely assumed to be the most likely progenitors of the extragalactic Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). In this talk, I will review our recent observational results on radio magnetars and discuss the link to FRBs.