Limits on Fast Radio Burst–like Counterparts to Gamma-Ray Bursts Using CHIME/FRB
Alice P. Curtin, Shriharsh P. Tendulkar, Alexander Josephy, Pragya Chawla, Bridget C. Andersen, V. M. Kaspi, Mohit Bhardwaj, Tomás Cassanelli, Amanda M. Cook, Fengqiu Adam Dong, Emmanuel Fonseca, B. M. Gaensler, Jane Kaczmarek, Adam E. Lanmnan, Calvin Leung, Aaron B. Pearlman, Emily Petroff, Ziggy Pleunis, Masoud Rafiei-Ravandi, S. M. Ransom, Kaitlyn Shin, Paul Scholz, Kendrick M. Smith, I. H. Stairs
Abstract
Abstract Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a class of highly energetic, mostly extragalactic radio transients lasting for ∼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 3 σ 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 (∼1–10 ms) radio emission before, at the time of, or after the reported high-energy emission at the position of 39 GRBs. For short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs), we constrain the radio flux in the 400–800 MHz band to be under a few kJy for ∼5.5–12.5 hr post-high-energy burst. We use these limits to constrain models that predict FRB-like prompt radio emission after SGRBs. For long gamma-ray bursts, we constrain the radio flux to be under a few kJy from ∼6 hr pre-high-energy burst to ∼12 hr post-high-energy burst.