No Arabic abstract
We report on the detection of seven bursts from the periodically active, repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source FRB 180916.J0158+65 in the 300-400-MHz frequency range with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Emission in multiple bursts is visible down to the bottom of the GBT band, suggesting that the cutoff frequency (if it exists) for FRB emission is lower than 300 MHz. Observations were conducted during predicted periods of activity of the source, and had simultaneous coverage with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the FRB backend on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope. We find that one of the GBT-detected bursts has potentially associated emission in the CHIME band (400-800 MHz) but we detect no bursts in the LOFAR band (110-190 MHz), placing a limit of $alpha > -1.0$ on the spectral index of broadband emission from the source. We also find that emission from the source is severely band-limited with burst bandwidths as low as $sim$40 MHz. In addition, we place the strictest constraint on observable scattering of the source, $<$ 1.7 ms, at 350 MHz, suggesting that the circumburst environment does not have strong scattering properties. Additionally, knowing that the circumburst environment is optically thin to free-free absorption at 300 MHz, we find evidence against the association of a hyper-compact HII region or a young supernova remnant (age $<$ 50 yr) with the source.
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.
We report on simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 180916.J0158+65 using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), Effelsberg, and Deep Space Network (DSS-14 and DSS-63) radio telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. During 33 ks of Chandra observations, we detect no radio bursts in overlapping Effelsberg or Deep Space Network observations and a single radio burst during CHIME/FRB source transits. We detect no X-ray events in excess of the background during the Chandra observations. These non-detections imply a 5-$sigma$ limit of $<5times10^{-10}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ for the 0.5--10 keV fluence of prompt emission at the time of the radio burst and $1.3times10^{-9}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ at any time during the Chandra observations at the position of FRB 180916.J0158+65. Given the host-galaxy redshift of FRB 180916.J0158+65 ($zsim0.034$), these correspond to energy limits of $<1.6times10^{45}$ erg and $<4times10^{45}$ erg, respectively. We also place a 5-$sigma$ limit of $<8times10^{-15}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ on the 0.5--10,keV absorbed flux of a persistent source at the location of FRB 180916.J0158+65. This corresponds to a luminosity limit of $<2times10^{40}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Using Fermi/GBM data we search for prompt gamma-ray emission at the time of radio bursts from FRB 180916.J0158+65 and find no significant bursts, placing a limit of $4times10^{-9}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ on the 10--100 keV fluence. We also search Fermi/LAT data for periodic modulation of the gamma-ray brightness at the 16.35-day period of radio-burst activity and detect no significant modulation. We compare these deep limits to the predictions of various fast radio burst models, but conclude that similar X-ray constraints on a closer fast radio burst source would be needed to strongly constrain theory.
The discovery rate of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is increasing dramatically thanks to new radio facilities. Meanwhile, wide-field instruments such as the 47 deg$^2$ Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey the optical sky to study transient and variable sources. We present serendipitous ZTF observations of the CHIME repeating source FRB 180916.J0158+65, that was localized to a spiral galaxy 149 Mpc away and is the first FRB suggesting periodic modulation in its activity. While 147 ZTF exposures corresponded to expected high-activity periods of this FRB, no single ZTF exposure was at the same time as a CHIME detection. No $>3sigma$ optical source was found at the FRB location in 683 ZTF exposures, totalling 5.69 hours of integration time. We combined ZTF upper limits and expected repetitions from FRB 180916.J0158+65 in a statistical framework using a Weibull distribution, agnostic of periodic modulation priors. The analysis yielded a constraint on the ratio between the optical and radio fluences of $eta lesssim 200$, corresponding to an optical energy $E_{rm opt} lesssim 3 times 10^{46}$ erg for a fiducial 10 Jy ms FRB (90% confidence). A deeper (but less statistically robust) constraint of $eta lesssim 3$ can be placed assuming a rate of $r(>5$ Jy ms)= hr$^{-1}$ and $1.2pm 1.1$ FRB occurring during exposures taken in high-activity windows. The constraint can be improved with shorter per-image exposures and longer integration time, or observing FRBs at higher Galactic latitudes. This work demonstrated how current surveys can statistically constrain multi-wavelength counterparts to FRBs even without deliberately scheduled simultaneous radio observation.
A recent discovery of the periodic activity of the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 180916.J0158+65 in the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) hints at possible origin of the FRB from a freely precessing neutron star with a magnetar magnetic field of about $10^{16}$ G. However, the absence of simultaneously detected high-energy emission in the Swift and AGILE observations imposes stringent constraints on the field magnitude and questions the possibility of such a progenitor. We show that consideration of forced precession of a neutron star does not encounter the difficulty. This kind of precession takes place even if the neutron star is not deformed and is brought about by the anomalous moment of electromagnetic forces induced by stellar rotation and determined by non-corotational currents. Contrary to what is expected for the currents of corotation, the anomalous torque calculated by the direct method appears to be non-zero. If the observed 16.35-day period corresponds to the period of stellar precession, the inferred internal magnetic field appears to be about $6times10^{14}$ G for rotational period 1 s. For another possibly periodic FRB 121102 with 157-day period the magnetic field is even lower, $2times10^{14}$ G, thereby justifying earlier considerations and not ruling out the hypothesis of FRB origin from precessing neutron stars.
We report on the lowest-frequency detection to date of three bursts from the fast radio burst FRB 180916, observed at 328 MHz with the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT). The SRT observed the periodic repeater FRB 180916 for five days from 2020 February 20 to 24 during a time interval of active radio bursting, and detected the three bursts during the first hour of observations; no more bursts were detected during the remaining ~ 30 hours. Simultaneous SRT observations at 1548 MHz did not detect any bursts. Burst fluences are in the range 37 to 13 Jy ms. No relevant scattering is observed for these bursts. We also present the results of the multi-wavelength campaign we performed on FRB 180916, during the five days of the active window. Simultaneously with the SRT observations, others with different time spans were performed with the Northern Cross at 408 MHz, with XMM-Newton, NICER, INTEGRAL, AGILE, and with the TNG and two optical telescopes in Asiago, which are equipped with fast photometers. XMM-Newton obtained data simultaneously with the three bursts detected by the SRT, and determined a luminosity upper limit in the 0.3-10 keV energy range of ~$10^{45}$ erg/s for the burst emission. AGILE obtained data simultaneously with the first burst and determined a fluence upper limit in the MeV range for millisecond timescales of $ 10^{-8}$ erg cm$^{-2}$.Our results show that absorption from the circumburst medium does not significantly affect the emission from FRB 180916, thus limiting the possible presence of a superluminous supernova around the source, and indicate that a cutoff for the bursting mechanism, if present, must be at lower frequencies. Our multi-wavelength campaign sensitively constrains the broadband emission from FRB 180916, and provides the best limits so far for the electromagnetic response to the radio bursting of this remarkable source of fast radio bursts.