No Arabic abstract
We discuss physical constrains that observations of high brightness temperature coherent radio emission, with brightness temperatures as high as $T_b sim 10^{35}$ K, impose on the plasma parameters at relativistically moving astrophysical sources. High brightness temperatures imply a minimal plasma energy density at the source. Additional important constraints come from the fact that resonantly emitting particles lose most of their energy to non-resonant inverse Compton and synchrotron processes. We also interpret recent observations of high-to-low frequency drifting features in the spectra of repeating FRBs as analogues of type-III Solar radio bursts produced by reconnection plasma beams within magnetospheres of highly magnetized neutron stars.
Recent localization of the repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 121102 revealed the distance of its host galaxy and luminosities of the bursts. We investigated constraints on the young neutron star (NS) model, that (a) the FRB intrinsic luminosity is supported by the spin-down energy, and (b) the FRB duration is shorter than the NS rotation period. In the case of a circular cone emission geometry, conditions (a) and (b) determine the NS parameters within very small ranges, compared with that from only condition (a) discussed in previous works. Anisotropy of the pulsed emission does not affect the area of the allowed parameter region by virtue of condition (b). The determined parameters are consistent with those independently limited by the properties of the possible persistent radio counterpart and the circumburst environments such as surrounding materials. Since the NS in the allowed parameter region is older than the spin-down timescale, the hypothetical GRP-like model expects a rapid radio flux decay of $lesssim1$ Jy within a few years as the spin-down luminosity decreases. The continuous monitoring will give a hint of discrimination of the models. If no flux evolution will be seen, we need to consider an alternative model, e.g., the magnetically powered flare.
The spectra of fast radio bursts (FRBs) encode valuable information about the sources local environment, underlying emission mechanism(s), and the intervening media along the line of sight. We present results from a long-term multiwavelength radio monitoring campaign of two repeating FRB sources, FRB 121102 and FRB 180916.J0158+65, with the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) 70-m radio telescopes (DSS-63 and DSS-14). The observations of FRB 121102 were performed simultaneously at 2.3 and 8.4 GHz, and spanned a total of 27.3 hr between 2019 September 19 and 2020 February 11. We detected 2 radio bursts in the 2.3 GHz frequency band from FRB 121102, but no evidence of radio emission was found at 8.4 GHz during any of our observations. We observed FRB 180916.J0158+65 simultaneously at 2.3 and 8.4 GHz, and also separately in the 1.5 GHz frequency band, for a total of 101.8 hr between 2019 September 19 and 2020 May 14. Our observations of FRB 180916.J0158+65 spanned multiple activity cycles during which the source was known to be active and covered a wide range of activity phases. Several of our observations occurred during times when bursts were detected from the source between 400-800 MHz with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope. However, no radio bursts were detected from FRB 180916.J0158+65 at any of the frequencies used during our observations with the DSN radio telescopes. We find that FRB 180916.J0158+65s apparent activity is strongly frequency-dependent due to the narrowband nature of its radio bursts, which have less spectral occupancy at high radio frequencies ($gtrsim$ 2 GHz). We also find that fewer or fainter bursts are emitted from the source at high radio frequencies. We discuss the implications of these results on possible progenitor models of repeating FRBs.
Estimating the all-sky rate of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been difficult due to small-number statistics and the fact that they are seen by disparate surveys in different regions of the sky. In this paper we provide limits for the FRB rate at 800 MHz based on the only burst detected at frequencies below 1.4 GHz, FRB 110523. We discuss the difficulties in rate estimation, particularly in providing an all-sky rate above a single fluence threshold. We find an implied rate between 700-900 MHz that is consistent with the rate at 1.4 GHz, scaling to $6.4^{+29.5}_{-5.0} times 10^3$,sky$^{-1}$,day$^{-1}$ for an HTRU-like survey. This is promising for upcoming experiments below a GHz like CHIME and UTMOST, for which we forecast detection rates. Given 110523s discovery at 32$sigma$ with nothing weaker detected, down to the threshold of 8$sigma$, we find consistency with a Euclidean flux distribution but disfavour steep distributions, ruling out $gamma > 2.2$.
We report on the discovery and analysis of bursts from nine new repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources found using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope. These sources span a dispersion measure (DM) range of 195 to 1380 pc cm$^{-3}$. We detect two bursts from three of the new sources, three bursts from four of the new sources, four bursts from one new source, and five bursts from one new source. We determine sky coordinates of all sources with uncertainties of $sim$10$^prime$. We detect Faraday rotation measures for two sources, with values $-20(1)$ and $-499.8(7)$ rad m$^{-2}$, that are substantially lower than the RM derived from bursts emitted by FRB 121102. We find that the DM distribution of our events, combined with the nine other repeaters discovered by CHIME/FRB, is indistinguishable from that of thus far non-repeating CHIME/FRB events. However, as previously reported, the burst widths appear statistically significantly larger than the thus far non-repeating CHIME/FRB events, further supporting the notion of inherently different emission mechanisms and/or local environments. These results are consistent with previous work, though are now derived from 18 repeating sources discovered by CHIME/FRB during its first year of operation. We identify candidate galaxies that may contain FRB 190303.J1353+48 (DM = 222.4 pc cm$^{-3}$).
The localization of the repeating fast radio burst (FRB), FRB 121102, suggests that it is associated with a persistent radio-luminous compact source in the FRB host galaxy. Using the FIRST radio catalog, I present a search for luminous persistent sources in nearby galaxies, with radio luminosities >10% of the FRB 121102 persistent source luminosity. The galaxy sample contains about 30% of the total galaxy g-band luminosity within <108 Mpc, in a footprint of 10,600 deg^2. After rejecting sources likely due to active galactic nuclei activity or background sources, I remain with 11 candidates that are presumably associated with galactic disks or star formation regions. At least some of these candidates are likely to be due to chance alignment. In addition, I find 85 sources within 1 of galactic nuclei. Assuming the radio persistent sources are not related to galactic nuclei and that they follow the galaxy g-band light, the 11 sources imply a 95% confidence upper limit on the space density of luminous persistent sources of <5x10^-5 Mpc^-3, and that at any given time only a small fraction of galaxies host a radio luminous persistent source (<10^-3 L_*^-1). Assuming persistent sources life time of 100 yr, this implies a birth rate of <5x10^-7 yr^-1 Mpc^-3. Given the FRB volumetric rate, and assuming that all FRBs repeat and are associated with persistent radio sources, this sets a lower limit on the rate of FRB events per persistent source of >0.8 yr^-1. I argue that these 11 candidates are good targets for FRB searches and I estimate the FRB event rate from these candidates.