A fast radio burst localized at detection to an edge-on galaxy using very-long-baseline interferometry

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration, luminous radio transients of extragalactic origin. These events have been used to trace the baryonic structure of the Universe using their dispersion measure (DM) assuming that the contribution from host galaxies can be reliably estimated. However, contributions from the immediate environment of an FRB may dominate the observed DM, thus making redshift estimates challenging without a robust host galaxy association. Furthermore, while at least one Galactic burst has been associated with a magnetar, other localized FRBs argue against magnetars as the sole progenitor model. Precise localization within the host galaxy can discriminate between progenitor models, a major goal of the field. Until now, localizations on this spatial scale have only been carried out in follow-up observations of repeating sources. Here we demonstrate the localization of FRB 20210603A with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) on two baselines, using data collected only at the time of detection. We localize the burst to SDSS J004105.82+211331.9, an edge-on galaxy at $z\approx 0.177$, and detect recent star formation in the kiloparsec-scale vicinity of the burst. The edge-on inclination of the host galaxy allows for a unique comparison between the line of sight towards the FRB and lines of sight towards known Galactic pulsars. The DM, Faraday rotation measure (RM), and scattering suggest a progenitor coincident with the host galactic plane, strengthening the link between the environment of FRB 20210603A and the disk of its host galaxy. Single-pulse VLBI localizations of FRBs to within their host galaxies, following the one presented here, will further constrain the origins and host environments of one-off FRBs.

arXiv comment40 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy, changed title

References in corpus (61)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• The Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• The McGill Magnetar Catalog
• An Analysis of the Shapes of Interstellar Extinction Curves. V. The IR-Through-UV Curve Morphology
• Faraday Rotation Measure Synthesis
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts
• Improved Estimates of the Milky Way's Stellar Mass and Star Formation Rate from Hierarchical Bayesian Meta-Analysis
• The First CHIME/FRB Fast Radio Burst Catalog
• Nebular Continuum and Line Emission in Stellar Population Synthesis Models
• Dense magnetized plasma associated with a fast radio burst
• The CHIME Fast Radio Burst Project: System Overview
• A repeating fast radio burst associated with a persistent radio source
• 45 Years of Rotation of the Crab Pulsar
• Nine New Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources from CHIME/FRB
• A nearby repeating fast radio burst in the direction of M81
• Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Pathfinder
• Characterizing the FRB host galaxy population and its connection to transients in the local and extragalactic Universe
• SDSSJ150634.27+013331.6: the second compact elliptical galaxy in the NGC5846 group
• Total Galaxy Magnitudes and Effective Radii from Petrosian Magnitudes and Radii
• The velocity dispersion and mass profile of the Milky Way
• The z-DM distribution of fast radio bursts
• A Local Universe Host for the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 20181030A
• A physically motivated definition for the size of galaxies in an era of ultra-deep imaging
• The Galactic Halo Contribution to the Dispersion Measure of Extragalactic Fast Radio Bursts
• Cosmicflows-4: The Catalog of ~10000 Tully-Fisher Distances
• The 60 pc Environment of FRB 20180916B
• Inclination-Dependent Luminosity Function of Spiral Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Implication for Dust Extinction
• Fast Radio Bursts as Probes of Magnetic Fields in the Intergalactic Medium
• Electron Density Structure of the Local Galactic Disk
• An analysis pipeline for CHIME/FRB full-array baseband data
• An FRB Sent Me a DM: Constraining the Electron Column of the Milky Way Halo with Fast Radio Burst Dispersion Measures from CHIME/FRB
• Milliarcsecond localisation of the repeating FRB 20201124A
• Faraday depolarization and induced circular polarization by multi-path propagation with application to FRBs
• psrqpy: a python interface for querying the ATNF pulsar catalogue
• Exploring the dispersion measure of the Milky Way halo
• Constraining Galaxy Haloes from the Dispersion and Scattering of Fast Radio Bursts and Pulsars
• Microarcsecond Astrometry: Science Highlights from Gaia
• Calibrating CHIME, A New Radio Interferometer to Probe Dark Energy
• Faraday conversion and magneto-ionic variations in Fast Radio Bursts
• Conversion Measure of Faraday Rotation-Conversion with application to Fast Radio Bursts
• CHIME FRB: An application of FFT beamforming for a radio telescope
• VLBI imaging of a flare in the Crab Nebula: More than just a spot
• A Synoptic VLBI Technique for Localizing Non-Repeating Fast Radio Bursts with CHIME/FRB
• A Radio-Frequency-over-Fiber link for large-array radio astronomy applications
• Localizing FRBs through VLBI with the Algonquin Radio Observatory 10-m Telescope
• The cloverleaf antenna: A compact wide-bandwidth dual-polarization feed for CHIME
• A clock stabilization system for CHIME/FRB Outriggers
• The Cosmic Dispersion Measure in the EAGLE Simulations
• A GPU Spatial Processing System for CHIME

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Measuring Hubble constant using localized and unlocalized fast radio bursts
• Probing Cosmology with 92 Localized Fast Radio Bursts and DESI BAO
• Fast Radio Bursts as probes of the late-time universe: a new insight on the Hubble tension
• Reinvestigation of Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxy and Event Rate Density
• Redshift dependence of FRB host dispersion measures across cosmic epochs
• Refined Constraints on the Hubble Constant from Localized FRBs with Assessment of Systematic Effects
• Revealing Limitation in the Standard Cosmological Model: A Redshift-Dependent Hubble Constant from Fast Radio Bursts
• Probing Cosmic Curvature with Fast Radio Bursts and DESI DR2
• 3D Localization of FRB 20190425A for Its Potential Host Galaxy and Implications
• Unveiling the distribution and redshift dependence of host galaxy dispersion measures using localized fast radio bursts
• Forecasting the FRB Population Observed Through Galaxy Cluster Lenses
• Detection of Partial Coherence due to Multipath Propagation for FRB 20220413B with CHIME/FRB
• Radio Supernovae