VERITAS Observations of Fast Radio Bursts

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright, unresolved, millisecond-duration flashes of radio emission originating from outside of the Milky Way. The origin of these mysterious outbursts is unknown, but their high luminosity, high dispersion measure and short duration requires an extreme, high-energy, astrophysical process. The majority of FRBs have been discovered as single events which would require a chance coincidence for contemporaneous multiwavelength observations. However, two have been observed to repeat: FRB 121102 and the recently detected FRB 180814.J0422+73. These repeating FRBs have allowed for targeted observations by a number of different instruments, including VERITAS. We present the VERITAS FRB observing program and the results of these observations.

Gamma-ray and Optical Observations of Repeating Fast Radio Bursts with VERITAS

“…In later seasons repeaters were selected to optimize the likelihood of observing a multiwavelength counterpart. We sought to select a mixture of repeaters with In addition to the previously reported limits from bursts from FRB 121102 [13], VERITAS has also collected data during three contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous bursts with CHIME from the repeater FRB 180916.J0158+65. The properties of these bursts are shown in Table 2.…”

Gamma-ray and Optical Observations of Repeating Fast Radio Bursts with VERITAS

“…In later seasons repeaters were selected to optimize the likelihood of observing a multiwavelength counterpart. We sought to select a mixture of repeaters with In addition to the previously reported limits from bursts from FRB 121102 [23], VERITAS has also collected data during three contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous bursts with CHIME from the repeater FRB 180916.J0158+65. The properties of these bursts are shown in Table 2.…”

Summary of the 36th ICRC Gamma-ray Indirect sessions

“…Most of them are one time only events, however two repeating sources have been seen: FRB 121102 and FRB 190814.J0422+73. To shed light on the origin of FRB gamma-ray observations of FRB repeaters are being performed [81,88]. Due to shortness of the phenomena, observations have to be performed strictly simultaneously with a radio telescope, and the coincidence of a possible signal with FRB is done offline.…”

“…Interestingly, Cherenkov telescopes, due to their huge mirror areas can also be used as optical telescopes for looking for optical counterparts of FRBs [89]. While during the observations times with the Cherenkov telescopes a number of FRB have been detected by radio telescopes, no significant emission either as gamma-ray excess, nor raise of optical flux has been observed [88,81].…”