Predicting the rate of fast radio bursts in globular clusters from binary black hole observations

TL;DR

This paper combines gravitational wave and FRB observations to predict the rate of binary white dwarf coalescences in globular clusters, providing insights into FRB origins and globular cluster populations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-messenger method linking gravitational wave data with FRB rates to study globular cluster contributions and binary white dwarf coalescences.

Findings

BWD coalescence rates decrease with redshift in the mass-loss scenario.

Globular clusters contribute less than 1% to local FRB rates.

The approach constrains globular cluster populations using multi-messenger data.

Abstract

The repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source in an old globular cluster (GC) in M81 proves that FRBs, which are typically associated with young magnetars, can also occur in old stellar populations. A potential explanation is super-Chandrasekhar binary white dwarf (BWD) coalescences, which may produce FRB-emitting neutron stars. GCs can also give rise to binary black hole (BBH) mergers detectable with gravitational waves, and the BWD coalescence rate from GCs is correlated with their BBH merger rate. For the first time, we combine independent observations of gravitational waves and FRBs to infer the origins of FRB sources. We use GC formation histories inferred from BBH observations to predict the rate of super-Chandrasekhar BWD coalescences originating from GCs as a function of redshift. We explore mass-loss and mass-conserved scenarios for BWD coalescences and find that the coalescence rates evolve differently across redshift in these two cases. In the mass-loss scenario, the BWD coalescence rates decrease with increasing redshift, similar to some recent measurements of the FRB rate as a function of redshift. We show that GCs could contribute $\lesssim 1\%$ to the total FRB source formation rates in the local Universe. Our multi-messenger approach also offers a novel method to better constrain the GC population using both FRB and gravitational wave observations.