The most probable host of CHIME FRB 190425A, associated with binary neutron star merger GW190425, and a late-time transient search

Abstract

The identification and localization of Fast Radio Bursts to their host galaxies has revealed important details about the progenitors of these mysterious, millisecond-long bursts of coherent radio emission. In this work we study the most probable host galaxy of the apparently non-repeating CHIME/FRB event FRB 20190425A — a particularly high luminosity, low dispersion measure event that was demonstrated in a recent paper to be temporally and spatially coincident with the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binary neutron star merger GW190425, suggesting an astrophysical association (p-value 0.0052). In this paper we remain agnostic to this result, and we confirm UGC10667 as the most probable host galaxy of FRB 20190425A, demonstrating that the host galaxies of low dispersion measure, one-off CHIME FRBs can be plausibly identified. We then perform multi-wavelength observations to characterize the galaxy and search for any afterglow emission associated with the FRB and its putative GW counterpart. We find no radio or optical transient emission in our observations 2.5 yr post-burst. UGC10667 is a spiral galaxy at z ∼ 0.03, dominated by an old stellar population. We find no evidence of a large population of young stars, with nebular emission dominated by star formation at a rate of 1 − 2 M⊙ yr−1. While we cannot rule out a young magnetar as the origin of FRB 20190425A, our observations are consistent with an origin in a long delay-time neutron star binary merger.

The Demographics, Stellar Populations, and Star Formation Histories of Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxies: Implications for the Progenitors

“…We supplement our sample of 23 FRB hosts with identified hosts of seven FRBs from the literature that did not meet the criteria for inclusion in our sample (a combination of low PATH probabilities were detected past the date cutoff of 2022 January, or have burst energetics below our cutoff) but nonetheless have claimed host identifications and redshifts. These include the CHIME FRB 20190425A (Panther et al 2023), DSA FRB 20190523A (Ravi et al 2019) (Connor et al 2023;Sharma et al 2023). We also plot a demarcation at νL ν = 10 9 L e below which a host can be classified as a dwarf galaxy (Figure 9).…”

“…It has also been predicted that the mergers of two neutron stars (NSs), which can experience potentially long delay times of several gigayears or more, could produce magnetars that may be indefinitely stable to collapse and eventually produce observable FRBs (Totani 2013;Wang et al 2016;Pan et al 2022). The recent claim of an association between the binary NS merger GW190425 and an FRB 20190425A would be definitive evidence for another such delayed channel (Moroianu et al 2023;Panther et al 2023). These pieces of evidence are consistent with the results of Li & Zhang (2020) who found that the current sample of FRB host environments are consistent with magnetars formed through multiple formation channels.…”

A commensal Fast Radio Burst search pipeline for the Murchison Widefield Array

“…Similarly, a detection of an FRB accompanying GWs from nearby (∼40 Mpc) BNS mergers like Abbott et al (2017) would confirm the link between these two classes of events suggested by theories (Rowlinson & Anderson 2019;Chu et al 2016;Totani 2013). The MWA is particularly well suited to detect potential FRB-like counterparts of GW events as described in James et al (2019) and supported by the recent associations of the CHIME FRB 190425A with GW190425 (Moroianu et al 2023;Panther et al 2023). Furthermore, as described by Tian et al (2023a), the MWA is also in a perfect geographical location to maximise the chances of detecting FRB counterparts of GW events detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK; Abbott et al 2018).…”

A Fast Radio Burst in a Compact Galaxy Group at z ∼ 1

“…Of the few dozen FRBs with redshifts determined from their host galaxies, the large majority reside at relatively low redshifts of z  0.5 (Ravi 2019;Bhandari et al 2022;Ravi et al 2023a;Gordon et al 2023;Ibik et al 2024;Law et al 2023;Lee-Waddell et al 2023;Panther et al 2023), primarily due to the sensitivity of current FRB discovery experiments (e.g., CHIME/FRB Collaboration et al 2018; Ravi et al 2023a). Thus, the population of FRB environments closer to the peak of cosmic star formation (z ≈ 2; Madau & Dickinson 2014) is virtually uncharted.…”