Landing page for project EB105

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are microsecond-millisecond duration radio bursts that originate from distant galaxies. Despite the discovery of hundreds of FRBs, their sources and physical mechanisms are highly debated. Thanks to the VLBI localisation of a handful of repeating FRBs, it is now possible to study the local environments of FRB sources. Two of the repeating FRB sources are observed to be co-located with a compact radio source called a persistent radio source (PRS). PRSs are too luminous and too compact to plausibly be related to star formation in the host galaxy. However, this definition is based on only two sources and therefore it is crucial to amass a large sample of FRB-PRSs to really understand the whole population. In this proposal, we request observations of potential PRSs that could be associated with two new repeating CHIME/FRBs. Our proposed VLBI observations will confirm the nature and constrain the size of the radio sources which are currently detected with the Very Large Array (VLA) in the field of two repeating CHIME FRBs. This will not only double the known FRB-PRS population but will also establish diversity in the known PRS luminosities, thereby constraining FRB progenitor models.

This data is part of the archive of VLBI data maintained by JIVE on behalf of the EVN, a network of radio telescopes located primarily in Europe and Asia, with additional antennas in South Africa. The EVN archive itself has the DOI https://doi.org/10.17616/R3Z197