Preferential Occurrence of Fast Radio Bursts in Massive Star-Forming Galaxies

• Main Authors: Sharma, Kritti, Ravi, Vikram, Connor, Liam, Law, Casey, Ocker, Stella Koch, Sherman, Myles, Kosogorov, Nikita, Faber, Jakob, Hallinan, Gregg, Harnach, Charlie, Hellbourg, Greg, Hobbs, Rick, Hodge, David, Hodges, Mark, Lamb, James, Rasmussen, Paul, Somalwar, Jean, Weinreb, Sander, Woody, David, Leja, Joel, Anand, Shreya, Das, Kaustav Kashyap, Qin, Yu-Jing, Rose, Sam, Dong, Dillon Z, Miller, Jessie, Yao, Yuhan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25-09-2024
• Subjects: Physics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2409.16964

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration events detected from beyond
the Milky Way. FRB emission characteristics favor highly magnetized neutron
stars, or magnetars, as the sources, as evidenced by FRB-like bursts from a
galactic magnetar, and the star-forming nature of FRB host galaxies. However,
the processes that produce FRB sources remain unknown. Although galactic
magnetars are often linked to core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), it's uncertain
what determines which supernovae result in magnetars. The galactic environments
of FRB sources can be harnessed to probe their progenitors. Here, we present
the stellar population properties of 30 FRB host galaxies discovered by the
Deep Synoptic Array. Our analysis shows a significant deficit of low-mass FRB
hosts compared to the occurrence of star-formation in the universe, implying
that FRBs are a biased tracer of star-formation, preferentially selecting
massive star-forming galaxies. This bias may be driven by galaxy metallicity,
which is positively correlated with stellar mass. Metal-rich environments may
favor the formation of magnetar progenitors through stellar mergers, as higher
metallicity stars are less compact and more likely to fill their Roche lobes,
leading to unstable mass transfer. Although massive stars do not have
convective interiors to generate strong magnetic fields by dynamo, merger
remnants are thought to have the requisite internal magnetic-field strengths to
result in magnetars. The preferential occurrence of FRBs in massive
star-forming galaxies suggests that CCSN of merger remnants preferentially
forms magnetars.