FRB 171019: An event of binary neutron star merger?

TL;DR

This paper proposes a binary neutron star merger model for FRB 171019, suggesting the initial bright burst was from the merger, followed by fainter, starquake-induced repeating bursts, explaining the observed brightness differences.

Contribution

It introduces a novel merger-based model for FRB 171019, linking the initial burst to the merger and subsequent bursts to starquakes, which is a new explanation for the burst brightness variation.

Findings

The first burst likely resulted from a neutron star merger.

Repeating bursts are probably caused by starquakes, explaining their fainter nature.

The model aligns with the observed brightness hierarchy of the bursts.

Abstract

The fast radio burst, FRB 171019, was relatively bright when discovered first by ASKAP, but was identified as a repeater with three faint bursts detected later by GBT and CHIME. These observations lead to the discussion of whether the first bright burst shares the same mechanism with the following repeating bursts. A model of binary neutron star merger is proposed for FRB 171019, in which the first bright burst occurred during the merger event, while the subsequent repeating bursts are starquake-induced, and generally fainter, as the energy release rate for the starquakes can hardly exceed that of the catastrophic merger event. This scenario is consistent with the observation that no burst detected is as bright as the first one.