Scale-invariance in the repeating fast radio burst 121102

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the statistical properties of FRB 121102, revealing scale-invariance and distribution patterns similar to soft gamma repeaters, which may have implications for understanding their physical mechanisms.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the statistical properties of FRB 121102 follow scale-invariant patterns and fit specific distribution models, providing new insights into their nature.

Findings

Fluence, flux, and energy distributions follow bent power laws.

Fluctuations follow Tsallis q-Gaussian distributions with q~2.

Statistical properties are similar to soft gamma repeaters.

Abstract

The statistical properties of the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102 are investigated. We find that the cumulative distributions of fluence, flux density, total energy and waiting time can be well fitted by the bent power law. In addition, the probability density functions of fluctuations of fluence, flux density and total energy well follow the Tsallis $q$-Gaussian distribution. The $q$ values keep steady around $q\sim 2$ for different scale intervals, indicating a scale-invariant structure of the bursts. The statistical properties of FRB 121102 are very similar to that of the soft gamma repeater SGR J1550-5418. The underlying physical implications need to be further investigated.