Observing FRB 121102 with VERITAS; Searching for Associated TeV Emission

Abstract

Fast radio bursts are bright, unresolved and short flashes of radio emission originating from outside the Milky Way. The origin of these mysterious outbursts is unknown, but their high luminosity and short duration has prompted much speculation. The discovery that FRB 121102 repeats has enabled multiwavelength follow up, which has identified the host galaxy. VERITAS has observed the location of FRB 121102, including coincident observations with Arecibo. We present the results of a search for steady very high energy γ-ray emission and the methodology for searching for short timescale, transient optical and very high energy γ-ray emission.

Following up Transient sources at Very High Energies with MAGIC

“…Nevertheless, for the first time it was possible to constrain the burst VHE and optical emission simultaneous to FRBs, which can constrain magnetars models. The limits for the persistent VHE emission instead are comparable to those obtained by VERITAS [20]. Currently the search for FRBs sees many experiments involved, both single dish (Parkes, Arecibo,…”

VERITAS Observations of Fast Radio Bursts

“…Upper limits for the archival observations of FRB 121102 have been reported in [18]. The 95% confidence limits for steady emission during the observations of 25 November 2017 alone, during which 15 FRBs occurred, are 5.25 × 10 −13 photons cm −2 s −1 above 200 GeV for soft cuts and 1.86 × 10 −12 photons cm −2 s −1 above 300 GeV for moderate cuts.…”

“…Results of a search for steady gamma-ray emission from the location of FRB 121102 with 10.8 hours of VERITAS observations taken over 2016-2017 have been reported in [18]. While some of these exposures were coincident with Arecibo observations, no radio bursts were reported during the overlapping observations.…”

“…The 95% confidence limits for steady emission during the observations of 25 November 2017 alone, during which 15 FRBs occurred, are 5.25 × 10 −13 photons cm −2 s −1 above 200 GeV for soft cuts and 1.86 × 10 −12 photons cm −2 s −1 above 300 GeV for moderate cuts. The methodology for a comprehensive burst search has been discussed in [18] and [12]. It typically includes searching multiple time windows, with multiple levels of event selection, as well as searching for delayed or precursor emission.…”

The Transient program of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

“…Following the detection of repeating bursts from FRB121102, coordinated MWL campaigns became possible. First results of these campaigns have been presented by the VERITAS [10] and MAGIC collaborations [11]. CTA will continue these searches.…”