No Arabic abstract
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are a mysterious flash phenomenon detected in radio wavelengths with a duration of only a few milliseconds, and they may also have prompt gamma-ray flashes. Here we carry out a blind search for msec-duration gamma-ray flashes using the 7-year Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) all-sky gamma-ray data. About 100 flash candidates are detected, but after removing those associated with bright steady point sources, we find no flash events at high Galactic latitude region (|b|>20 deg). Events at lower latitude regions are consistent with statistical flukes originating from the diffuse gamma-ray background. From these results, we place an upper limit on the GeV gamma-ray to radio flux ratio of FRBs as xi equiv (nu L_nu)_gamma / (nu L_nu)_radio < 10^8, depending on the assumed FRB rate evolution. This limit is comparable with the largest value found for pulsars, though xi of pulsars is distributed in a wide range. We also compare this limit with the spectral energy distribution of the 2004 giant flare of the magnetar SGR 1806-20.
No robust detection of prompt electromagnetic counterparts to fast radio bursts (FRBs) has yet been obtained, in spite of several multi-wavelength searches carried out so far. Specifically, X/gamma-ray counterparts are predicted by some models. We planned on searching for prompt gamma-ray counterparts in the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) data, taking advantage of the unique combination of large effective area in the keV-MeV energy range and of sub-ms time resolution. We selected 39 FRBs that were promptly visible from the High-Energy (HE) instrument aboard Insight-HXMT. After calculating the expected arrival times at the location of the spacecraft, we searched for a significant excess in both individual and cumulative time profiles over a wide range of time resolutions, from several seconds down to sub-ms scales. Using the dispersion measures in excess of the Galactic terms, we estimated the upper limits on the redshifts. No convincing signal was found and for each FRB we constrained the gamma-ray isotropic-equivalent luminosity and the released energy as a function of emission timescale. For the nearest FRB source, the periodic repeater FRB180916.J0158+65, we find $L_{gamma,iso}<5.5times 10^{47}$ erg/s over 1 s, whereas $L_{gamma,iso}<10^{49}-10^{51}$ erg/s for the bulk of FRBs. The same values scale up by a factor of ~100 for a ms-long emission. Even on a timescale comparable with that of the radio pulse itself no keV-MeV emission is observed. A systematic association with either long or short GRBs is ruled out with high confidence, except for subluminous events, as is the case for core-collapse of massive stars (long) or binary neutron star mergers (short) viewed off axis. Only giant flares from extra-galactic magnetars at least ten times more energetic than Galactic siblings are ruled out for the nearest FRB.
The detection of six Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) has recently been reported. FRBs are short duration ($sim$ 1 ms), highly dispersed radio pulses from astronomical sources. The physical interpretation for the FRBs remains unclear but is thought to involve highly compact objects at cosmological distance. It has been suggested that a fraction of FRBs could be physically associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Recent radio observations of GRBs have reported the detection of two highly dispersed short duration radio pulses using a 12 m radio telescope at 1.4 GHz. Motivated by this result, we have performed a systematic and sensitive search for FRBs associated with GRBs. We have observed five GRBs at 2.3 GHz using a 26 m radio telescope located at the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory, Hobart. The radio telescope was automated to rapidly respond to Gamma-ray Coordination Network notifications from the Swift satellite and slew to the GRB position within $sim$ 140 s. The data were searched for pulses up to 5000 pc $rm cm^{-3}$ in dispersion measure and pulse widths ranging from 640 $rm mu$s to 25.60 ms. We did not detect any events $rm geq 6 sigma$. An in-depth statistical analysis of our data shows that events detected above $rm 5 sigma$ are consistent with thermal noise fluctuations only. A joint analysis of our data with previous experiments shows that previously claimed detections of FRBs from GRBs are unlikely to be astrophysical. Our results are in line with the lack of consistency noted between the recently presented FRB event rates and GRB event rates.
We report the results of the rapid follow-up observations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi satellite to search for associated fast radio bursts. The observations were conducted with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder at frequencies from 1.2-1.4 GHz. A set of 20 bursts, of which four were short GRBs, were followed up with a typical latency of about one minute, for a duration of up to 11 hours after the burst. The data was searched using 4096 dispersion measure trials up to a maximum dispersion measure of 3763 pc cm$^{-3}$, and for pulse widths $w$ over a range of duration from 1.256 to 40.48 ms. No associated pulsed radio emission was observed above $26 {rm Jy ms} (w/1 {rm ms})^{-1/2}$ for any of the 20 GRBs.
We report the discovery of nine previously unknown gamma-ray pulsars in a blind search of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). The pulsars were found with a novel hierarchical search method originally developed for detecting continuous gravitational waves from rapidly rotating neutron stars. Designed to find isolated pulsars spinning at up to kHz frequencies, the new method is computationally efficient, and incorporates several advances, including a metric-based gridding of the search parameter space (frequency, frequency derivative and sky location) and the use of photon probability weights. The nine pulsars have spin frequencies between 3 and 12 Hz, and characteristic ages ranging from 17 kyr to 3 Myr. Two of them, PSRs J1803-2149 and J2111+4606, are young and energetic Galactic-plane pulsars (spin-down power above 6e35 erg/s and ages below 100 kyr). The seven remaining pulsars, PSRs J0106+4855, J0622+3749, J1620-4927, J1746-3239, J2028+3332, J2030+4415, J2139+4716, are older and less energetic; two of them are located at higher Galactic latitudes (|b| > 10 deg). PSR J0106+4855 has the largest characteristic age (3 Myr) and the smallest surface magnetic field (2e11 G) of all LAT blind-search pulsars. PSR J2139+4716 has the lowest spin-down power (3e33 erg/s) among all non-recycled gamma-ray pulsars ever found. Despite extensive multi-frequency observations, only PSR J0106+4855 has detectable pulsations in the radio band. The other eight pulsars belong to the increasing population of radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsars.
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observatory is a pair conversion telescope sensitive to gamma-rays over more than four energy decades, between 20 MeV and more than 300 GeV. Acting in synergy with the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) - the other instrument onboard the mission - the LAT features unprecedented sensitivity for the study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in terms of spectral coverage, effective area, and instrumental dead time. We will review the main results from Fermi-LAT observation of GRB, presenting the main properties of GRBs at GeV energies.