Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are milliseconds radio transients with large dispersion measures (DMs). An outstanding question is the relation between repeating FRBs and those with a single burst. In this paper, we study the energy distribution of the repeating FRB 121102. For a power-law distribution of energy dN/dE∝E−αE, we show that the value of αE is in a narrow range 1.6−1.8 for bursts observed by different telescopes at different frequencies, which indicates a universal energy distribution for FRB 121102. Interestingly, similar power-law index of energy distribution for non-repeating FRBs observed by Parkes and ASKAP is also found. However, if low-energy bursts below completeness threshold of Arecibo are discarded for FRB 121102, the slope could be up to 2.2. Implications of such a universal energy distribution are discussed.
@article{arxiv.1904.12408,
title = {A universal energy distribution for FRB 121102},
author = {F. Y. Wang and G. Q. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.12408},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
17 pages, 3 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ