No abstract

We report on the discovery and analysis of bursts from nine new repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources found using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope. These sources span a dispersion measure (DM) range of 195-1380 pc cm −3 . We detect two bursts from three of the new sources, three bursts from four of the new sources, four bursts from one new source, and five bursts from one new source. We determine sky coordinates of all sources with uncertainties of ∼10′. We detect Faraday rotation measures (RMs) for two sources, with values −20(1) and −499.8(7) radm −2 , that are substantially lower than the RM derived from bursts emitted by FRB 121102. We find that the DM distribution of our events, combined with the nine other repeaters discovered by CHIME/FRB, is indistinguishable from that of thus far non-repeating CHIME/FRB events. However, as previously reported, the burst widths appear statistically significantly larger than the thus far non-repeating CHIME/FRB events, further supporting the notion of inherently different emission mechanisms and/or local environments. These results are consistent with previous work, though are now derived from 18 repeating sources discovered by CHIME/FRB during its first year of operation. We identify candidate galaxies that may contain FRB 190303.J1353+48 (DM=222.4 pc cm −3 ).

We report on the discovery of FRB 20200120E, a repeating fast radio burst (FRB) with a low dispersion measure (DM) detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment FRB project. The source DM of 87.82 pc cm −3 is the lowest recorded from an FRB to date, yet it is significantly higher than the maximum expected from the Milky Way interstellar medium in this direction (∼50 pc cm −3 ). We have detected three bursts and one candidate burst from the source over the period 2020 January-November. The baseband voltage data for the event on 2020 January 20 enabled a sky localization of the source to within ;14 arcmin 2 (90% confidence). The FRB localization is close to M81, a spiral galaxy at a distance of 3.6 Mpc. The FRB appears on the outskirts of M81 (projected offset ∼20 kpc) but well inside its extended H I and thick disks. We empirically estimate the probability of a chance coincidence with M81 to be <10 −2 . However, we cannot reject a Milky Way halo origin for the FRB. Within the FRB localization region, we find several interesting cataloged M81 sources and a radio point source detected in the Very Large Array Sky Survey. We search for prompt X-ray counterparts in Swift Burst Alert Telescope and Fermi/GBM data, and, for two of the FRB 20200120E bursts, we rule out coincident SGR 1806 −20-like X-ray bursts. Due to the proximity of FRB 20200120E, future follow-up for prompt multiwavelength counterparts and subarcsecond localization could be constraining of proposed FRB models. Unified AstronomyThesaurus concepts: Radio transient sources (2008); Radio bursts (1339); Transient sources (1851); Radio pulsars (1353)

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright, millisecond-duration radio transients originating from extragalactic distances 1 . Their origin is unknown. Some FRB sources emit repeat bursts, ruling out cataclysmic origins for those events [2][3][4] . Despite searches for periodicity in repeat burst arrival times on time scales from milliseconds to many days 2, 5-7 , these bursts have hitherto been observed to appear sporadically, and though clustered 8 , without a regular pattern. Here we report the detection of a 16.35 ± 0.18 day periodicity from a repeating FRB 180916.J0158+65 detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB) 4, 9 . In 28 bursts recorded from 16th September 2018 through 30th October 2019, we find that bursts arrive in a 4.0-day phase window, with some cycles showing no bursts, and some showing multiple bursts, within CHIME's limited daily exposure. Our results suggest a mechanism for periodic modulation either of the burst emission itself, or through external amplification or absorption, and disfavour models invoking purely sporadic processes.Last year the CHIME/FRB collaboration reported the discovery of eight new repeating FRB sources 4 , including FRB 180916.J0158+65, which was recently localized to a star-forming region in a nearby massive spiral galaxy at redshift 0.0337±0.0002 10 . From September 2018 to November 2019, CHIME/FRB has detected a total of 28 bursts from FRB 180916.J0158+65, which remains the most active source from this recent CHIME/FRB repeater sample. The barycentric arrival times for the 28 bursts (including those has been published before) from FRB 180916.J0158+65, corrected for delays from pulse dispersion, are listed in Extended Data Table 1.To search for periodicity, the burst arrival times (spanning a 400-day time range) were folded with different periods from 1.57 to 62.8 days (see Methods), with a Pearson's χ 2 test applied to each resulting profile with 8 phase bins 11 . A reduced χ 2 1 with respect to a uniform distribution indicates a periodicity unlikely to arise by chance. Furthermore, to account for the possible non-Poissonian statistics of the bursts 12 , we have applied the search with different weighting schemes that consider clustered bursts of different time range to be correlated events (see Methods).Searches with different weightings return periodograms of similar shape and have the same primary peak with significance varying between 3.5 − 8σ. As an example, the reduced χ 2 versus period using a weighting that counts only active days instead of individual events is shown in Figure 1a. A distinct peak is detected at 16.35 ± 0.18 days, with

No abstract