A search for short-term hard X-ray bursts in the direction of the repeating FRB 121102

Abstract

The nature of fast radio bursts (FRBs), which occurs on millisecond time scales in the radio band, has not been well-understood. Among their unknown observational properties are their broadband spectra and persistent and transient multi-wavelength counterparts. Well-localized FRBs provide us the opportunity to address these issues in archival observations. We have performed searches for 15-150 keV hard X-ray bursts on time scales as short as millisecond in the direction of the repeating FRB 121102 (with a spacial resolution of a few arcminutes) in the archival Swift/BAT data during the period between October 2016 and September 2017. We have found no significant (5 $\sigma$) hard X-ray bursts in the direction of the repeating FRB. We have derived an upper limit of the hard X-ray (15--150 keV) flux of any X-ray bursts on 1 ms time scale of around $1.01\times 10^{-7}$erg cm${}^{-2}$s${}^{-1}$, if assuming a photo-index of 2 for potential X-ray flares in X-ray band. A plausible scenario for the repeating FRB as being associated with \emph{magnetar giant flare} is still far below the upper limit.

7 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• INTEGRAL discovery of a burst with associated radio emission from the magnetar SGR 1935+2154
• Fast radio bursts to be detected with the Square Kilometre Array
• Luminosity-duration relations and luminosity functions of repeating and non-repeating fast radio bursts
• Multiwavelength observations of Fast Radio Bursts
• FRB131104 Swift BAT data revisited: No evidence of a gamma-ray counterpart
• A search for hard X-ray bursts occurring simultaneously to fast radio bursts in the repeating FRB 121102