Long-term simultaneous 2.25/8.60~GHz monitoring of the newly-discovered repeating FRB~20240114A

TL;DR

This study presents a detailed, multi-frequency monitoring of the repeating FRB 20240114A, revealing frequency-dependent activity, burst properties, and spectral characteristics over a year-long observation period.

Contribution

It provides the first simultaneous 2.25 and 8.60 GHz observations of FRB 20240114A, uncovering its frequency-dependent activity and detailed burst energy distribution.

Findings

155 bursts detected at 2.25 GHz; none at 8.60 GHz above threshold.

Burst width at 2.25 GHz is narrower than at lower frequencies.

Burst energy distribution follows a power-law with index -1.20.

Abstract

We report on the simultaneous monitoring of the repeating fast radio burst (FRB) 20240114A at 2.25 and 8.60~GHz, conducted 66 times between 2024 January 29 and 2025 February 15 with the Shanghai Tianma Radio Telescope (TMRT). In about 180 hours of observation, we detected 155 bursts at 2.25~GHz above a fluence threshold of 0.72~Jy~ms, but none at 8.60~GHz above a fluence threshold of 0.27~Jy~ms. FRB~20240114A exhibited frequency-dependent activity, as evidenced by the non-detections in 14.3 hours of observations at 2.25~GHz prior to 2024 February 24, despite its reported activity below 2~GHz. In contrast to its low-activity state reported below 1.4~GHz between 2024 June and December, FRB~20240114A exhibited high activity at 2.25~GHz in 2024 July with a mean burst rate of $1.72^{+0.18}_{-0.16}~\rm{hr}^{-1}$, followed by a low-activity state. We also detected a short-term reactivation at 2.25~GHz around 2025 January 20, about two weeks after renewed activity was reported below 1.4~GHz by other telescopes. The median burst width at 2.25~GHz is 3~ms, which is narrower than that at lower frequencies. The waiting time distribution peaks at 1019~s, and burst arrivals on hourly timescales consistent with a Poisson process. The isotropic-equivalent energy of bursts spans $10^{37} -10^{39}$~erg. The distribution of burst energy above the completeness threshold ($7.5\times10^{37}$~erg) follows a power-law relation with an index of $\gamma=-1.20\pm0.03\pm0.02$. Finally, we find that FRB~20240114A is at least two orders of magnitude less active at 8.60~GHz than at 2.25~GHz, and we constrain the broadband spectra of the detected bursts.