A bright burst from FRB 20200120E in a globular cluster of the nearby galaxy M81

TL;DR

This paper reports a bright burst from FRB 20200120E in a globular cluster, showing that such nearby, low-energy FRBs can produce bursts detectable at cosmological distances, bridging the gap with distant FRBs.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of a significantly brighter burst from FRB 20200120E, demonstrating that FRBs in globular clusters can be observable at cosmological scales.

Findings

Detected a burst with 30 Jy ms fluence, 42 times brighter than previous bursts.

Burst energy is comparable to the weakest known FRBs, detectable beyond 200 Mpc.

Shows that globular cluster FRBs can be bright enough for cosmological observations.

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are immensely energetic millisecond-duration radio pulses. Observations indicate that nearby FRBs can be produced by old stellar populations, as suggested by the localization of the repeating source FRB 20200120E in a globular cluster of M81. Nevertheless, the burst energies of FRB 20200120E are significantly smaller than those of other cosmological FRBs, even falling below the energy of the Galactic event FRB 20200428. Here, we report the detection of a bright burst from FRB 20200120E in 1.1 -- 1.7 GHz, with a fluence of about 30 Jy ms, which is more than 42 times larger than the previously detected bursts near 1.4 GHz frequency. It reaches one-third of the energy of the weakest burst from FRB 20121102A and is detectable at a distance exceeding 200 Mpc. Our finding bridges the gap between nearby and cosmological FRBs and indicates that FRBs hosted in globular clusters can be bright enough to be observable at cosmological distances.