Host Galaxy Properties and Offset Distributions of Fast Radio Bursts: Implications for Their Progenitors

Creators: Heintz, Kasper E.; Prochaska, J. Xavier; Simha, Sunil; Platts, Emma; Fong, Wen-fai; Tejos, Nicolas; Ryder, Stuart D.; Aggerwal, Kshitij; Bhandari, Shivani; Day, Cherie K.; Deller, Adam T.; Kilpatrick, Charles D.; Law, Casey J.; Macquart, Jean-Pierre; Mannings, Alexandra; Marnoch, Lachlan J.; Sadler, Elaine M.; Shannon, Ryan M.

Abstract

We present observations and detailed characterizations of five new host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and localized to ≾ 1". Combining these galaxies with FRB hosts from the literature, we introduce criteria based on the probability of chance coincidence to define a subsample of 10 highly confident associations (at z = 0.03–0.52), 3 of which correspond to known repeating FRBs. Overall, the FRB-host galaxies exhibit a broad, continuous range of color (M_u − M_r = 0.9–2.0), stellar mass (M_★ = 10⁸ − 6 × 10¹⁰ M_⊙), and star formation rate (SFR = 0.05–10 M_⊙ yr⁻¹) spanning the full parameter space occupied by z < 0.5 galaxies. However, they do not track the color–magnitude, SFR–M_★, nor BPT diagrams of field galaxies surveyed at similar redshifts. There is an excess of "green valley" galaxies and an excess of emission-line ratios indicative of a harder radiation field than that generated by star formation alone. From the observed stellar mass distribution, we rule out the hypothesis that FRBs strictly track stellar mass in galaxies (>99% c.l.). We measure a median offset of 3.3 kpc from the FRB to the estimated center of the host galaxies and compare the host-burst offset distribution and other properties with the distributions of long- and short-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs and SGRBs), core-collapse supernovae (CC-SNe), and SNe Ia. This analysis rules out galaxies hosting LGRBs (faint, star-forming galaxies) as common hosts for FRBs (>95% c.l.). Other transient channels (SGRBs, CC-, and SNe Ia) have host-galaxy properties and offsets consistent with the FRB distributions. All of the data and derived quantities are made publicly available on a dedicated website and repository.

Additional Information

© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2020 July 1; revised 2020 September 6; accepted 2020 September 8; published 2020 November 12. We would like to thank the referee for a thorough and constructive report, greatly improving the presentation of the results from this work. We would also like to thank Johan P. U. Fynbo and Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz for enlightening discussions on the implications for FRB progenitor models and Jesse Palmerio for his insight into statistical modeling. We would also like to thank Vikram Ravi for sharing his images of the host galaxy and localization region of FRB 190523. K.E.H. acknowledges support by a Project Grant (162948–051) from The Icelandic Research Fund. The Fast and Fortunate for FRB Follow-up team acknowledges support from NSF grants AST-1911140 and AST-1910471. N.T. acknowledges support by FONDECYT grant 11191217. W.F. acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under grant No. AST-1814782. K.A. acknowledges support from NSF grant AAG-1714897. A.T.D. is the recipient of an ARC Future Fellowship (FT150100415). R.M.S. acknowledges support through ARC Future Fellowship FT190100155 and discovery project DP180100857. This work is partly based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programs 0103.A-0101(A) and 0103.A-0101(B). This work is partly based on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSFs OIR Lab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). The Gemini data were obtained from program GS-2019B-Q-132, and processed using the Gemini Pyraf package. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and Australia Telescope Compact Array are part of the Australia Telescope National Facility, which is managed by CSIRO. Operation of ASKAP is funded by the Australian Government with support from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. ASKAP uses the resources of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. Establishment of ASKAP, the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre are initiatives of the Australian Government, with support from the Government of Western Australia and the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site. Partly based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated by the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. W. M. Keck Observatory access for FRB200430 was supported by Northwestern University and the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA).

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