Inferring the Distances of Fast Radio Bursts Through Associated 21-cm Absorption

Abstract

The distances of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) sources are currently unknown. We show that the 21-cm absorption line of hydrogen can be used to infer the redshifts of FRB sources, and determine whether they are Galactic or extragalactic. We calculate a probability of $\sim 10\%$ for the host galaxy of an FRB to exhibit a 21-cm absorption feature of equivalent width $\gtrsim 10\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. Arecibo, along with several future radio observatories, should be capable of detecting such associated 21-cm absorption signals for strong bursts of $\gtrsim \mathrm{several}\mathrm{Jy}$ peak flux densities.

6 pages, 2 figures; Accepted to MNRAS Letters

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Fast Radio Bursts
• The CHIME Fast Radio Burst Project: System Overview
• BURSTT: Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan