Circularly polarized radio emission from the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 20201124A

The mechanism that produces fast radio burst (FRB) emission is poorly understood. Targeted monitoring of repeating FRB sources provides the opportunity to fully characterise the emission properties in a manner impossible with one-off bursts. Here we report observations of the source of FRB~20201124A, with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Ultra-wideband Low (UWL) receiver at the Parkes 64-m radio telescope (\textit{Murriyang}). The source entered a period of emitting bright bursts during early April 2021. We have detected 16 bursts from this source. One of the bursts detected with ASKAP is the brightest burst ever observed from a repeating FRB source with an inferred fluence of $640\pm70$ Jy~ms. Of the five bursts detected with the UWL, none display any emission in the range 1.1--4 GHz. All UWL bursts are highly polarized, and we obtain an average Faraday rotation measure of $-613\pm2$~rad m$^{-3}$ for this source. In one of the UWL bursts, we see evidence of significant circularly-polarized emission with a fractional extent of $47\%$. Such a high degree of circular polarisation has never been seen before in bursts from repeating FRB sources. We also see evidence for variation in the polarization position angle in this UWL burst. Models for repeat burst emission will need to account for increasing diversity in the burst polarization properties.