Akshatha Gopinath

The unexpected localization of the repeating FRB 20200120E to a globular cluster challenges conventional FRB models based on magnetars formed via core collapse. One alternative model suggests that FRB 20200120E is a millisecond pulsar (MSP) producing giant pulses (GPs). To test this hypothesis, we compared the characteristics of FRB 20200120E bursts with the GPs of the most energetic Galactic MSP known, M28A (PSR B1821−24A), using observations with the Parkes (Murriyang) telescope’s Ultra Wideband Low-frequency (UWL) receiver. Our analysis provides insight into the spectral structure and frequency extent of M28A’s GPs, revealing broad-band spectra spanning 700 − 4000 MHz (in some cases) with complex spectral peaks. We find that known M28A GP characteristics persist at this bandwidth, such as durations, luminosities, periodicity, wait-time, and energy distribution. A sub-band search for narrow-band GPs yielded no detection of genuinely narrow-band GPs. However, we do find narrow-band spectral peaks of ∼100 MHz bandwidth, a similar scale observed for FRB 20200120E’s bursts. Compared to FRB 20200120E’s bursts, M28A’s GPs have 50 × shorter durations, 105 × lower spectral luminosities, clear periodicity (vs. no periodicity), a purely Poissonian wait-time distribution (vs. quasi-Poissonian), and generally broad-band spectra with narrow-band peaks (vs. only narrow-band bursts). Both sources show a steep energy distribution and minor dispersion measure variability. Our study finds no strong links between M28A and FRB 20200120E. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that FRB 20200120E is a rare and unique type of MSP with no Galactic analogue. Furthermore, higher-cadence monitoring of M28A, for hundreds to thousands of hours, might reveal rare but extremely luminous pulses.

We present the localization and host galaxy of FRB 20190208A, a repeating source of fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered using CHIME/FRB. As part of the Pinpointing REpeating ChIme Sources with EVN dishes repeater localization program on the European VLBI Network (EVN), we monitored FRB 20190208A for 65.6 hr at ∼1.4 GHz and detected a single burst, which led to its very long baseline interferometry localization with 260 mas uncertainty (2σ). Follow-up optical observations with the MMT Observatory (i ≳ 25.7 mag (AB)) found no visible host at the FRB position. Subsequent deeper observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, however, revealed an extremely faint galaxy (r = 27.32 ± 0.16 mag), very likely (99.95%) associated with FRB 20190208A. Given the dispersion measure of the FRB (∼580 pc cm⁻³), even the most conservative redshift estimate ( z max ∼ 0.83 ) implies that this is the lowest-luminosity FRB host to date (≲10⁸ L _⊙), even less luminous than the dwarf host of FRB 20121102A. We investigate how localization precision and the depth of optical imaging affect host association and discuss the implications of such a low-luminosity dwarf galaxy. Unlike the other repeaters with low-luminosity hosts, FRB 20190208A has a modest Faraday rotation measure of a few tens of rad m⁻², and EVN plus Very Large Array observations reveal no associated compact persistent radio source. We also monitored FRB 20190208A for 40.4 hr over 2 yr as part of the Extragalactic Coherent Light from Astrophysical Transients repeating FRB monitoring campaign on the Nançay Radio Telescope and detected one burst. Our results demonstrate that, in some cases, the robust association of an FRB with a host galaxy will require both high localization precision and deep optical follow-up.

The repeating fast radio burst source FRB 20220912A was remarkably active in the weeks after its discovery. Here we report 696 bursts detected with the Nançay Radio Telescope (NRT) as part of the Extragalactic Coherent Light from Astrophysical Transients (ÉCLAT) monitoring campaign. We present 68 observations, conducted from October 2022 to April 2023, with a total duration of 61 hours and an event rate peaking at |$75^{+10}_{-9}$| bursts per hour above a fluence threshold of 0.59 Jy ms in the 1.2 − 1.7-GHz band. Most bursts in the sample occur towards the bottom of the observing band. They follow a bimodal wait-time distribution, with peaks at 33.4 ms and 67.0 s. We find a roughly constant dispersion measure (DM) over time (δDM ≲ 2 pc cm⁻³) when taking into account ‘sad-trombone’ drift, with a mean drift rate of −8.8 MHz ms⁻¹. Nonetheless, we confirm small ∼0.3 pc cm⁻³ DM variations using microshot structure, while finding that microstructure is rare in our sample – despite the 16 μs time resolution of the data. The cumulative spectral energy distribution shows more high-energy bursts (E_ν ≳ 10³¹ erg Hz⁻¹) than would be expected from a simple power-law distribution. The burst rate per observation appears Poissonian, but the full set of observations is better modelled by a Weibull distribution, showing clustering. We discuss the various observational similarities that FRB 20220912A shares with other (hyper)active repeaters, which as a group are beginning to show a common set of phenomenological traits that provide multiple useful dimensions for their quantitative comparison and modelling.

We report on exceptionally bright bursts (>400 Jy ms) detected from the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 20220912A using the Nançay Radio Telescope (NRT), as part of the ECLAT (Extragalactic Coherent Light from Astrophysical Transients) monitoring campaign. These bursts exhibit extremely luminous, broadband, short-duration structures (∼16 μs), which we term ‘microshots’ and which can be especially well studied in the NRT data given the excellent signal-to-noise and dynamic range (32-bit samples). The estimated peak flux density of the brightest microshot is 450 Jy. We show that the microshots are clustered into dense ‘forests’, by modelling them as Weibull distributions and obtaining Weibull shape parameters of approximately 0.5. Our polarimetric analysis reveals that the bursts are nearly 100 % linearly polarised; have ≲ 10 % circular polarisation fractions; a near-zero average rotation measure of 0.10(6) rad m⁻²; and varying polarisation position angles over the burst duration. For one of the bursts, we analyse raw voltage data from simultaneous observations with the Westerbork RT-1 single 25-m dish. These data allow us to measure the scintillation bandwidth, 0.30(3) MHz, and to probe the bursts on (sub-)microsecond timescales. Some important nuances related to dedispersion are also discussed. We propose that the emission mechanism for the broadband microshots is potentially different from the emission mechanism of the broader burst components which still show a residual drift of a few hundred MHz ms⁻¹ after correcting for dispersion using the microshots. We discuss how the observed emission is phenomenologically analogous to different types of radio bursts from the Sun.

Context.The detection of synchrotron radiation from the intergalactic medium (IGM) that pervades the filaments of the Cosmic Web constitutes an upcoming frontier to test physical models of astrophysical shocks and their radiation mechanisms, trace the missing baryons, and constrain magnetogenesis – the origin and evolution of extragalactic magnetic fields.Aims.The first synchrotron detections of the IGM within filaments have recently been claimed. Now is the time to develop a rigorous statistical framework to predict sky regions with the strongest signal and to move from mere detection to inference, that is to say identifying the most plausible physical models and parameter values from observations.Methods.Current theory posits that the filament IGM lights up through shocks that originate from large-scale structure formation. With Bayesian inference, we generated a probability distribution on the set of specific intensity functions that represent our view of the merger- and accretion-shocked synchrotron Cosmic Web (MASSCW). We combined the Bayesian Origin Reconstruction from Galaxies (BORG) Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) total matter density posterior, which is based on spectroscopic observations of galaxies within SDSS DR7, snapshots of Enzo magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) cosmological simulations, a Gaussian random field (GRF), and a ray tracing approach to arrive at the result.Results.We present a physics-based prediction of the MASSCW signal, including principled uncertainty quantification, for a quarter of the sky and up to cosmological redshiftz_max = 0.2. The super-Mpc 3D resolution of the current implementation limits the resolution of the predicted 2D imagery, so that individual merger and accretion shocks are not resolved. The MASSCW prior can be used to identify the most promising fields to target with low-frequency radio telescopes and to conduct actual detection experiments. We furthermore calculated a probability distribution for the flux-density–weighted mean (i.e. sky-averaged) redshiftz̄̄of the MASSCW signal up toz_max, and found a median ofz̄̄ = 0.077. We constructed a low-parametric analytic model that produces a similar distribution forz̄̄, with a median ofz̄̄ = 0.072. Extrapolating the model, we were able to calculatez̄̄for all large-scale structure in the Universe (including what lies beyondz_max) and show that, if one only considers filaments,z̄̄depends on virtually one parameter. As case studies, we finally explore the predictions of our MASSCW specific intensity function prior in the vicinity of three galaxy clusters, the Hercules Cluster, the Coma Cluster, and Abell 2199, and in three deep Low-frequency Array (LOFAR) High-band Antennae (HBA) fields, the Lockman Hole, Abell 2255, and the Ursa Major Supercluster.Conclusions.We describe and implement a novel, flexible, and principled framework for predicting the low-frequency, low-resolution specific intensity function of the Cosmic Web due to merger and accretion shocks that arise during large-scale structure formation. The predictions guide Local Universe searches for filamentary baryons through half of the Northern Sky. Once cosmological simulations of alternative emission mechanisms have matured, our approach can be extended to predict additional physical pathways that contribute to the elusive synchrotron Cosmic Web signal.

The object FRB 20180916B is a well-studied repeating fast radio burst source. Its proximity (∼150 Mpc), along with detailed studies of the bursts, has revealed many clues about its nature, including a 16.3 day periodicity in its activity. Here we report on the detection of 18 bursts using LOFAR at 110–188 MHz, by far the lowest-frequency detections of any FRB to date. Some bursts are seen down to the lowest observed frequency of 110 MHz, suggesting that their spectra extend even lower. These observations provide an order-of-magnitude stronger constraint on the optical depth due to free–free absorption in the source’s local environment. The absence of circular polarization and nearly flat polarization angle curves are consistent with burst properties seen at 300–1700 MHz. Compared with higher frequencies, the larger burst widths (∼40–160 ms at 150 MHz) and lower linear polarization fractions are likely due to scattering. We find ∼2–3 rad m⁻² variations in the Faraday rotation measure that may be correlated with the activity cycle of the source. We compare the LOFAR burst arrival times to those of 38 previously published and 22 newly detected bursts from the uGMRT (200–450 MHz) and CHIME/FRB (400–800 MHz). Simultaneous observations show five CHIME/FRB bursts when no emission is detected by LOFAR. We find that the burst activity is systematically delayed toward lower frequencies by about 3 days from 600 to 150 MHz. We discuss these results in the context of a model in which FRB 20180916B is an interacting binary system featuring a neutron star and high-mass stellar companion.