Wadiasingh, Zorawar and Beniamini, Paz and Timokhin, Andrey and Baring, Matthew G. and van der Horst, Alexander J. and Harding, Alice K. and Kazanas, Demosthenes (2020) Fast Radio Burst Luminosity Function and Death Line in the Low-twist Magnetar Model. Astrophysical Journal, 891 (1). Art. No. 82. ISSN 1538-4357. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab6d69. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20200306-123714608
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Abstract
We explore the burst energy distribution of fast radio bursts (FRBs) in the low-twist magnetar model of Wadiasingh & Timokhin (WT19). Motivated by the power-law fluence distributions of FRB 121102, we propose an elementary model for the FRB luminosity function of individual repeaters with an inversion protocol that directly relates the power-law distribution index of magnetar short burst fluences to that for FRBs. The protocol indicates that the FRB energy scales virtually linearly with crust/field dislocation amplitude, if magnetar short bursts prevail in the magnetoelastic regime. Charge starvation in the magnetosphere during bursts (required in WT19) for individual repeaters implies the predicted burst fluence distribution is narrow, ≾3 decades for yielding strains and oscillation frequencies feasible in magnetar crusts. Requiring magnetic confinement and charge starvation, we obtain a death line for FRBs, which segregates magnetars from the normal pulsar population, suggesting only the former will host recurrent FRBs. We convolve the burst energy distribution for individual magnetars to define the distribution of luminosities in evolved magnetar populations. The broken power-law luminosity function's low-energy character depends on the population model, while the high-energy index traces that of individual repeaters. Independent of the evolved population, the broken power-law isotropic-equivalent energy/luminosity function peaks at ~10³⁷-10⁴⁰ erg with a low-energy cutoff at ~10³⁷ erg. Lastly, we consider the local fluence distribution of FRBs and find that it can constrain the subset of FRB-producing magnetar progenitors. Our model suggests that improvements in sensitivity may reveal a flattening of the global FRB fluence distribution and saturation in FRB rates.
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Additional Information: | © 2020 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 October 14; revised 2020 January 15; accepted 2020 January 17; published 2020 March 5. We acknowledge helpful discussions with Jonathan Granot, Mansi Kasliwal, Chryssa Kouveliotou, Joeri Van Leeuwen, and George Younes. We thank Maxim Lyutikov for alerting us to the reconnection model. Z.W. is supported by the NASA postdoctoral program. A.T. thanks the National Science Foundation for support through grant AST-1616632. M.G.B. thanks the National Science Foundation for support through grant AST-1517550. A.K.H. is supported by the Fermi Guest Investigator program. This work has made use of the NASA Astrophysics Data System. | ||||||||||||||||
Group: | TAPIR | ||||||||||||||||
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Subject Keywords: | Magnetars ; Neutron stars ; Radio transient sources ; Radio bursts ; X-ray bursts ; Gamma-ray bursts ; Optical bursts ; Nonthermal radiation sources ; X-ray transient sources ; High energy astrophysics ; Luminosity function ; Cosmology | ||||||||||||||||
Issue or Number: | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
Classification Code: | Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Magnetars (992); Neutron stars (1108); Radio transient sources (2008); Radio bursts (1339); X-ray bursts (1814); Gamma-ray bursts (629); Optical bursts (1164); Non-thermal radiation sources (1119); X-ray transient sou | ||||||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4357/ab6d69 | ||||||||||||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20200306-123714608 | ||||||||||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20200306-123714608 | ||||||||||||||||
Official Citation: | Zorawar Wadiasingh et al 2020 ApJ 891 82 | ||||||||||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||||||||||
ID Code: | 101739 | ||||||||||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited By: | Tony Diaz | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited On: | 06 Mar 2020 20:49 | ||||||||||||||||
Last Modified: | 16 Nov 2021 18:05 |
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