A Target Search for Fast Radio Bursts Associated with Two Fast Blue Optical Transients: AT2018cow and CSS161010

Abstract

Fast blue optical transients (FBOTs) are luminous, rapidly evolving events with blue spectra, possibly powered by newborn magnetars and linked to fast radio bursts (FRBs). Given this potential connection, we conducted deep radio observations of two nearby FBOTs (AT2018cow and CSS161010) using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), but detected no FRB-like signals. Our observations establish the most stringent upper limits on millisecond radio transients from FBOTs, reaching $\sim$10 mJy flux density. Assuming a log-normal luminosity function analogous to the repeating FRB 121102, we constrain the burst rate from potential magnetars in FBOTs to $<0.01$ hr${}^{-1}$. The short ejecta escape timescale ($\sim$2.6 yr) compared to our observation epochs (4$-$6 years post-explosion) suggests that nondetection may not be attributed to FBOT's ejecta absorption. These findings impose useful constraints on the FRB activity emanating from newborn magnetars within FBOTs. They indicate that if there is a burst phase, it is either characterized by weaker bursts, occurs less frequently compared to those in known repeating FRB sources, or takes place beyond the time frame of our current observations. To gain deeper insights into the birth-related activity of magnetars, it is of importance to conduct timely and sustained FRB searches in FBOTs that emerge in the future.

Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (37)

• A bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• PSRCHIVE and PSRFITS An Open Approach to Radio Pulsar Data Storage and Analysis
• The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project
• Formation of Double Neutron Star Systems
• Fast Radio Bursts
• Fast radio bursts as synchrotron maser emission from decelerating relativistic blast waves
• Rapidly-Evolving and Luminous Transients from Pan-STARRS1
• INTEGRAL discovery of a burst with associated radio emission from the magnetar SGR 1935+2154
• The Physical Mechanisms of Fast Radio Bursts
• The Physics of Fast Radio Bursts
• A radio transient with unusually slow periodic emission
• A sample of low energy bursts from FRB 121102
• Repeating Fast Radio Bursts from Magnetars with Low Magnetospheric Twist
• The Koala: A Fast Blue Optical Transient with Luminous Radio Emission from a Starburst Dwarf Galaxy at $z=0.27$
• Radio emission evolution, polarimetry and multifrequency single pulse analysis of the radio magnetar PSR J1622-4950
• Magnetically-driven explosions of rapidly-rotating white dwarfs following Accretion-Induced Collapse
• Are all fast radio bursts repeating sources?
• Coherent inverse Compton scattering by bunches in fast radio bursts
• A comparison of Galactic electron density models using PyGEDM
• The variability timescales and brightness temperatures of radio flares from stars to supermassive black holes
• Blinkverse: A Database of Fast Radio Bursts
• Sub-arcminute localization of 13 repeating fast radio bursts detected by CHIME/FRB
• The Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transient incoherent-sum survey
• A Search for Late-Time Radio Emission and Fast Radio Bursts from Superluminous Supernovae
• Magnetar Engines in Fast Blue Optical Transients and Their Connections with SLSNe, SNe Ic-BL, and lGRBs
• Deep Synoptic Array Science: Polarimetry of 25 New Fast Radio Bursts Provides Insights into their Origins
• How can newly born rapidly rotating neutron stars become magnetars?
• Your: Your Unified Reader
• The discovery and significance of fast radio bursts
• PulsarX: a new pulsar searching package -I. A high performance folding program for pulsar surveys
• Direct Emission of Strong Radio Pulses During Magnetar Flares
• Probing Cosmology with 92 Localized Fast Radio Bursts and DESI BAO
• The first 7 months of the 2020 X-ray outburst of the magnetar SGR J1935+2154
• Multi-wavelength observations of the Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient AT2023fhn
• A Population Study on the Radio Emission of Fast Blue Optical Transients
• A Search for Low-frequency Radio Pulses from Long Gamma-ray Bursts with the Murchison Widefield Array

Cited by in corpus (1)

• The Northern High Time Resolution Universe pulsar survey: II. Single-pulse search set-up and simulations