FRB Energetics and detectability from high redshifts

TL;DR

This paper estimates the maximum redshifts, luminosities, and energies of known FRBs using dispersion measures, and discusses the detectability of high-redshift FRBs with current and future telescopes.

Contribution

It provides new upper limit estimates for FRB redshifts, luminosities, and energies, and analyzes the detectability of high-redshift FRBs with large-aperture telescopes.

Findings

FRB 160102 likely has a redshift > 3.

FAST can detect FRBs up to z ~ 10.4 under ideal conditions.

Large telescopes are more effective for high-z FRB detection, especially with steep luminosity functions.

Abstract

We estimate the upper limit redshifts of known FRBs using the dispersion measure (DM) - redshift ($z$) relation and derive the upper limit peak luminosity $L_p$ and energy $E$ of FRBs within the observational band. The average $z$ upper limits range from 0.17 to 3.10, the average $L_p$ upper limits range from $1.24 \times 10^{42} \rm erg \ s^{-1}$ to $7.80 \times 10^{44} \rm erg \ s^{-1}$, and the average $E$ upper limits range from $6.91 \times 10^{39}$ erg to $1.94 \times 10^{42}$ erg. FRB 160102 with DM $=2596.1 \pm 0.3 \ {\rm pc \ cm^{-3}}$ likely has a redshift greater than 3. Assuming that its intrinsic DM contribution from the host and FRB source is ${\rm DM_{host}+DM_{scr}}\sim 100 \ {\rm pc \ cm^{-3}}$, such an FRB can be detected up to $z \sim 3.6$ by Parkes and by FAST under ideal conditions up to $z \sim 10.4$. Assuming that there exist FRBs detectable at $z\sim 15$ by sensitive telescopes such as FAST, the upper limit DM for FRB searches may be set to $\sim 9000 \ {\rm pc \ cm^{-3}}$. For single-dish telescopes, those with a larger aperture tend to detect more FRBs than those with a smaller aperture if the FRB luminosity function index $\alpha_{\rm L}$ is steeper than 2, and vice versa. In any case, large-aperture telescopes such as FAST are more capable of detecting high-$z$ FRBs, even though most of FRBs detected by them are still from relatively low redshifts.