Luminosity distribution of fast radio bursts from CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 by means of the updated Macquart relation

TL;DR

This study analyzes the luminosity distribution of 125 low-DM FRBs from CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 using an updated Macquart relation, revealing different mechanisms for repeaters and non-repeaters based on their distinct lognormal luminosity distributions.

Contribution

It applies an updated Macquart relation to estimate FRB distances and demonstrates the luminosity distribution follows a lognormal form, highlighting differences between repeaters and non-repeaters.

Findings

Luminosity distribution of non-repeaters follows a lognormal form.

Different luminosity distributions for repeaters and non-repeaters.

Mean luminosity of non-repeaters is twice that of repeaters.

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely strong radio flares lasting several micro- to milliseconds and come from unidentified objects at cosmological distances, most of which are only seen once. Based on recently published data in the CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 in the frequency bands 400-800 MHz, we analyze 125 apparently singular FRBs with low dispersion measure (DM) and find that the distribution of their luminosity follows a lognormal form according to statistical tests. In our luminosity measurement, the FRB distance is estimated by using the Macquart relation which was obtained for 8 localized FRBs, and we find it still applicable for 18 sources after adding the latest 10 new localized FRBs. In addition, we test the validity of the luminosity distribution up to the Macquart relation and find that the lognormal form feature decreases as the uncertainty increases. Moreover, we compare the luminosity of these apparent non-repeaters with that of the previously observed 10 repeating FRBs also at low DM, noting that they belong to different lognormal distributions with the mean luminosity of non-repeaters being two times greater than that of repeaters. Therefore, from the two different lognormal distributions, different mechanisms for FRBs can be implied.