Millisecond Magnetar Birth Connects FRB 121102 to Superluminous Supernovae and Long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts

By B. Metzger, E. Berger, B. Margalit. 2017

310 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subarcsecond localization of the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102 revealed its coincidence with a dwarf host galaxy and a steady (“quiescent”) nonthermal radio source. We show that the properties of the host galaxy are consistent with those of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRB) and hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I). Both LGRBs and SLSNe-I were previously hypothesized to be powered by the electromagnetic spin-down of newly formed, strongly magnetized neutron stars with millisecond birth rotation periods (“millisecond magnetars”). This motivates considering a scenario whereby the repeated bursts from FRB 121102 originate from a young magnetar remnant embedded within a young hydrogen-poor supernova (SN) remnant. Requirements on the gigahertz free–free optical depth through the expanding SN ejecta (accounting for photoionization by the rotationally powered magnetar nebula), energetic constraints on the bursts, and constraints on the size of the quiescent source all point to an age of less than a few decades. The quiescent radio source can be attributed to synchrotron emission from the shock interaction between the fast outer layer of the supernova ejecta with the surrounding wind of the progenitor star, or the radio source can from deeper within the magnetar wind nebula as outlined in Metzger et al. Alternatively, the radio emission could be an orphan afterglow from an initially off-axis LGRB jet, though this might require the source to be too young. The young age of the source can be tested by searching for a time derivative of the dispersion measure and the predicted fading of the quiescent radio source. We propose future tests of the SLSNe-I/LGRB/FRB connection, such as searches for FRBs from nearby SLSNe-I/LGRBs on timescales of decades after their explosions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6f550045daaf654dcfbc9dee5690025db0084555

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. Bing Zhang
3. B. Margalit
4. Pawan Kumar
5. E. Berger
6. A. Beloborodov
7. L. Sironi
8. Wenbin Lu

Citations in the corpus

• A unified picture of Galactic and cosmological fast radio bursts (2020, background): “…galaxy data of the localized FRBs (Li & Zhang 2020): whereas FRB 121102 has a host galaxy similar to that of LGRBs or SLSNe (Tendulkar et al. 2017; Metzger et al. 2017; Nicholl et al. 2017), other four hosts resemble the Milky Way galaxy that hosts regular magnetars (Bannister et al. 2019; Ravi…”
• Fast radio burst source properties and curvature radiation model (2017, background): “…DM from the supernova remnant is nearly constant for a period of a few years as required by the data for FRB 121102 from which 17 bursts have been detected (Spitler et al. 2016; Scholz et al. 2016); this point has already been made recently by (Murase et al. 2016; Piro 2016; Metzger et al. 2017).”
• A Flaring Magnetar in FRB 121102? (2017, background): “A plausible age of the source is between 10 and 100 years (Metzger et al. 2017).”
• The Magnetar Model for Type I Superluminous Supernovae. I. Bayesian Analysis of the Full Multicolor Light-curve Sample with MOSFiT (2017, background): “After the discovery that at least one FRB repeats (Spitler et al. 2016) and inhabits a dwarf galaxy that is indistinguishable from typical SLSN hosts (Tendulkar et al. 2016; Chatterjee et al. 2017), Metzger et al. (2017) proposed that FRBs originate from the magnetar remnants of young SLSNe.”
• A “Cosmic Comb” Model of Fast Radio Bursts (2017, background): “Models invoking more energetic magnetars as the source of FRBs have been proposed (Zhang 2014; Murase et al. 2016a; Piro 2016; Murase et al. 2016b; Gao & Zhang 2017; Dai et al. 2016b; Metzger et al. 2017).”
• A Multi-telescope Campaign on FRB 121102: Implications for the FRB Population (2017, background): “This assumes isotropic burst energies of ∼ 1040 erg or intrinsic energies of ∼ 1039(Ωb/0.1) erg. Metzger et al. (2017) use the young magnetar model for FRBs to calculate the maximum number of bursts that can be powered by its magnetic field as ≈ 3000(0.1/Ωb).”
• A Concordance Picture of FRB 121102 as a Flaring Magnetar Embedded in a Magnetized Ion–Electron Wind Nebula (2018, background): “Figure 1 summarizes constraints that can be placed on the age of FRB121102 since its birthing supernova, tage, and the radius of the synchrotron radio nebula, Rn (Metzger et al. 2017; Waxman 2017).”
• A living theory catalogue for fast radio bursts (2018, background): “orodov, 2017). The host galaxy of FRB 121102 supports the predicted long-duration γ-ray bursts (LGRB) and hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae(SLSNe I) formed in the birth of millisecond magnetars (Metzger et al., 2017; Nicholl et al., 2017). The variable radio source associated with FRB 121102 is”
• Fast radio bursts as synchrotron maser emission from decelerating relativistic blast waves (2019, methodology): “Several mechanisms can suppress low frequency emission (Ravi & Loeb 2018), including synchrotron self-absorption (Metzger et al. 2017) by the nebula, free-free absorption by the supernova ejecta (Margalit et al. 2018).”