Vol 21, No 8

Statistical properties of fast radio bursts elucidate their origins: magnetars are favored over gamma-ray bursts

Xiang-Han Cui, Cheng-Min Zhang, Shuang-Qiang Wang, Jian-Wei Zhang, Di Li, Bo Peng, Wei-Wei Zhu, Richard Strom, Na Wang, Qing-Dong Wu, Chanq-Qing Ye, De-Hua Wang, Yi-Yan Yang, Zhen-Qi Diao

Abstract

Abstract Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely strong radio flares lasting several milliseconds, most of which come from unidentified objects at a cosmological distance. They can be apparently repeating or not. In this paper, we analyzed 18 repeaters and 12 non-repeating FRBs observed in the frequency bands of 400–800 MHz from Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). We investigated the distributions of FRB isotropic-equivalent radio luminosity, considering the K correction. Statistically, the luminosity distribution can be better fitted by Gaussian form than by power-law. Based on the above results, together with the observed FRB event rate, pulse duration, and radio luminosity, FRB origin models are evaluated and constrained such that the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be excluded for the non-repeaters while magnetars or neutron stars (NSs) emitting the supergiant pulses are preferred for the repeaters. We also found the necessity of a small FRB emission beaming solid angle (about 0.1 sr) from magnetars that should be considered, and/or the FRB association with soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) may lie at a low probability of about 10%. Finally, we discussed the uncertainty of FRB luminosity caused by the estimation of the distance that is inferred by the simple relation between the redshift and dispersion measure (DM).

Keywords

Keywords transients: fast radio bursts — methods: statistical — stars: magnetars

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