Limits on Fast Radio Burst-like Counterparts to Gamma-ray Bursts using CHIME/FRB

TL;DR

This study used CHIME/FRB data to search for coincident FRB-like radio signals with gamma-ray bursts, finding no significant associations but setting limits on possible radio emissions around GRBs.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on FRB-like radio emission associated with GRBs using CHIME/FRB observations, improving understanding of their potential connection.

Findings

No statistically significant FRB-GRB coincidences found.

Set upper limits on radio flux around GRBs, e.g., <50 Jy before SGRBs.

Constraints challenge models predicting prompt FRB-like emission with GRBs.

Abstract

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are a class of highly energetic, mostly extragalactic radio transients lasting for a few milliseconds. While over 600 FRBs have been published so far, their origins are presently unclear, with some theories for extragalactic FRBs predicting accompanying high-energy emission. In this work, we use the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Project to explore whether any FRB-like radio emission coincides in space and time with 81 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected between 2018 July 17 and 2019 July 8 by Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM. We do not find any statistically significant, coincident pairs within 3sigma of each other's spatial localization regions and within a time difference of up to one week. In addition to searching for spatial matches between known FRBs and known GRBs, we use CHIME/FRB to constrain FRB-like radio emission before, at the time of, or after the reported high-energy emission at the position of 39 GRBs. Our most constraining radio flux limits in the 400- to 800-MHz band for short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) are <50 Jy at 18.6 ks pre-high-energy emission, and <5 Jy at 28.4 ks post-high-energy emission, assuming a 10-ms radio burst width with each limit valid for 60 seconds. We use these limits to constrain models that predict FRB-like prompt radio emission before and after SGRBs. We also place limits as low as 2 Jy for long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs), but there are no strong theoretical predictions for coincident FRB-like radio emission for LGRBs.