Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Research Articles

Timing Pulsars with CHIME and the NANOGrav 15yr Dataset

The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) conducts long-term timing campaigns on large numbers of millisecond pulsars (MSPs). Wideband (WB) timing of the NANOGrav datasets was first done in the 12.5yr dataset, and proved to be extremely helpful for measuring the time-varying dispersion measure, which can significantly limit timing precision. However, we are limited by the fact that NANOGrav only observes most pulsars once per month. In contrast, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Telescope currently observes most NANOGrav MSPs at nearly daily cadence at 600 MHz with a 400 MHz bandwidth. Using WB timing techniques, we combined one year of data taken at CHIME with data over the same time period from the NANOGrav 15yr Dataset for three MSPs.

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Fast Radio Bursts Detected by CHIME/FRB during the LIGO–Virgo Observing Run O3a

We search for gravitational-wave (GW) transients associated with fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project, during the first part of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 April 1 15:00 UTC–2019 October 1 15:00 UTC). Triggers from 22 FRBs were analyzed with a search that targets both binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers. A targeted search for generic GW transients was conducted on 40 FRBs. We find no significant evidence for a GW association in either search. Given the large uncertainties in the distances of our FRB sample, we are unable to exclude the possibility of a GW association. Assessing the volumetric event rates of both FRB and binary mergers, an association is limited to 15% of the FRB population for BNS mergers or 1% for NSBH mergers. We report 90% confidence lower bounds on the distance to each FRB for a range of GW progenitor models and set upper limits on the energy emitted through GWs for a range of emission scenarios. We find values of order 1051–1057 erg for models with central GW frequencies in the range 70–3560 Hz. At the sensitivity of this search, we find these limits to be above the predicted GW emissions for the models considered. We also find no significant coincident detection of GWs with the repeater, FRB 20200120E, which is the closest known extragalactic FRB.

Flux Calibration of CHIME/FRB Intensity Data

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients of microsecond to millisecond duration and unknown extragalactic origin. Central to the mystery of FRBs are their extremely high characteristic energies, which surpass the typical energies of other radio transients of similar duration, like Galactic pulsar and magnetar bursts, by orders of magnitude. Calibration of FRB-detecting telescopes for burst flux and fluence determination is crucial for FRB science, as these measurements enable studies of the FRB energy and brightness distribution in comparison to progenitor theories. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a radio interferometer of cylindrical design. This design leads to a high FRB detection rate but also leads to challenges for CHIME/FRB flux calibration. This paper presents a comprehensive review of these challenges, as well as the automated flux calibration software pipeline that was developed to calibrate bursts detected in the first CHIME/FRB catalog, consisting of 536 events detected between 2018 July 25 and 2019 July 1. We emphasize that, due to limitations in the localization of CHIME/FRB bursts, flux and fluence measurements produced by this pipeline are best interpreted as lower limits, with uncertainties on the limiting value.

Limits on Fast Radio Burst–like Counterparts to Gamma-Ray Bursts Using CHIME/FRB

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a class of highly energetic, mostly extragalactic radio transients lasting for ∼milliseconds. While over 600 FRBs have been published so far, their origins are presently unclear, with some theories for extragalactic FRBs predicting accompanying high-energy emission. In this work, we use the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Project to explore whether any FRB-like radio emission coincides in space and time with 81 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected between 2018 July 17 and 2019 July 8 by Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM. We do not find any statistically significant coincident pairs within 3σ of each other’s spatial localization regions and within a time difference of up to one week. In addition to searching for spatial matches between known FRBs and known GRBs, we use CHIME/FRB to constrain FRB-like (∼1–10 ms) radio emission before, at the time of, or after the reported high-energy emission at the position of 39 GRBs. For short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs), we constrain the radio flux in the 400–800 MHz band to be under a few kJy for ∼5.5–12.5 hr post-high-energy burst. We use these limits to constrain models that predict FRB-like prompt radio emission after SGRBs. For long gamma-ray bursts, we constrain the radio flux to be under a few kJy from ∼6 hr pre-high-energy burst to ∼12 hr post-high-energy burst.

High frequency study of FRB 20180916B using the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope

ABSTRACT FRB 20180916B is a repeating fast radio burst (FRB) with an activity period of 16.33 d. In previous observations ranging from ∼150−1400 MHz, the activity window was found to be frequency dependent, with lower frequency bursts occurring later. In this work, we present the highest frequency detections of bursts from this FRB, using the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope at 4−8 GHz. We present the results from two observing campaigns. We performed the first campaign over an entire activity period which resulted in no detections. The second campaign was done in an active window at 4−8 GHz which we predicted from our modelling of chromaticity, resulting in eight burst detections. The bursts were detected in a window of 1.35 d, 3.6 d preceding the activity peak seen by Canadian hydrogen intensity mapping experiment, suggesting the chromaticity extends to higher frequency. The detected bursts have narrower temporal widths and larger spectral widths compared to lower frequencies. All of them have flat polarization position angle sweeps and high polarization fractions. The bursts also exhibit diffractive scintillation due to the Milky Way, following a f3.90 ± 0.05 scaling, and vary significantly over time. We find that burst rate across frequency scales as f−2.6 ± 0.2. Lastly, we examine implications of the frequency dependency on the source models.

Revealing the Dynamic Magnetoionic Environments of Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources through Multiyear Polarimetric Monitoring with CHIME/FRB

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) display a confounding variety of burst properties and host-galaxy associations. Repeating FRBs offer insight into the FRB population by enabling spectral, temporal, and polarimetric properties to be tracked over time. Here, we report on the polarized observations of 12 repeating sources using multiyear monitoring with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) over 400–800 MHz. We observe significant rotation measure (RM) variations from many sources in our sample, including RM changes of several hundred radians per square meter over month timescales from FRBs 20181119A, 20190303A, and 20190417A, and more modest RM variability (ΔRM ≲ few tens of radians per square meter) from FRBs 20181030A, 20190208A, 20190213B, and 20190117A over equivalent timescales. Several repeaters display a frequency-dependent degree of linear polarization that is consistent with depolarization via scattering. Combining our measurements of RM variations with equivalent constraints on DM variability, we estimate the average line-of-sight magnetic field strength in the local environment of each repeater. In general, repeating FRBs display RM variations that are more prevalent and/or extreme than those seen from radio pulsars in the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds, suggesting repeating FRBs and pulsars occupy distinct magnetoionic environments.

A Large-scale Magneto-ionic Fluctuation in the Local Environment of Periodic Fast Radio Burst Source FRB 20180916B

Fast radio burst (FRB) source FRB 20180916B exhibits a 16.33-day periodicity in its burst activity. It is as of yet unclear what proposed mechanism produces the activity, but polarization information is a key diagnostic. Here we report on the polarization properties of 44 bursts from FRB 20180916B detected between 2018 December and 2021 December by CHIME/FRB, the FRB project on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment. In contrast to previous observations, we find significant variations in the Faraday rotation measure (RM) of FRB 20180916B. Over the 9-month period 2021 April and 2021 December we observe an apparent secular increase in RM of ∼50 rad m−2 (a fractional change of over 40%) that is accompanied by a possible drift of the emitting band to lower frequencies. This interval displays very little variation in the dispersion measure (ΔDM ≲ 0.8 pc cm−3), which indicates that the observed RM evolution is likely produced from coherent changes in the Faraday-active medium’s magnetic field. Burst-to-burst RM variations appear unrelated to the activity cycle phase. The degree of linear polarization of our burst sample (≳80%) is consistent with the negligible depolarization expected for this source in the 400–800 MHz bandpass of CHIME. FRB 20180916B joins other repeating FRBs in displaying substantial RM evolution. This is consistent with the notion that repeater progenitors may be associated with young stellar populations by their preferential occupation of dynamic magnetized environments commonly found in supernova remnants, in pulsar wind nebulae, or near high-mass stellar companions.

Classifying FRB spectrograms using nonlinear dimensionality reduction techniques

ABSTRACT Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious astronomical phenomena, and it is still uncertain whether they consist of multiple types. In this study, we use two nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithms – Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) and t-distributed stochastic neighbour embedding (t-SNE) – to differentiate repeaters from apparently non-repeaters in FRBs. Based on the first Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) FRB catalogue, these two methods are applied to standardized parameter data and image data from a sample of 594 sub-bursts and 535 FRBs, respectively. Both methods are able to differentiate repeaters from apparently non-repeaters. The UMAP algorithm using image data produces more accurate results and is a more model-independent method. Our result shows that in general repeater clusters tend to be narrowband, which implies a difference in burst morphology between repeaters and apparently non-repeaters. We also compared our UMAP predictions with the CHIME/FRB discovery of six new repeaters, the performance was generally good except for one outlier. Finally, we highlight the need for a larger and more complete sample of FRBs.

Detection of Cosmological 21 cm Emission with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment

We present a detection of 21 cm emission from large-scale structure (LSS) between redshift 0.78 and 1.43 made with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment. Radio observations acquired over 102 nights are used to construct maps that are foreground filtered and stacked on the angular and spectral locations of luminous red galaxies (LRGs), emission-line galaxies (ELGs), and quasars (QSOs) from the eBOSS clustering catalogs. We find decisive evidence for a detection when stacking on all three tracers of LSS, with the logarithm of the Bayes factor equal to 18.9 (LRG), 10.8 (ELG), and 56.3 (QSO). An alternative frequentist interpretation, based on the likelihood ratio test, yields a detection significance of 7.1σ (LRG), 5.7σ (ELG), and 11.1σ (QSO). These are the first 21 cm intensity mapping measurements made with an interferometer. We constrain the effective clustering amplitude of neutral hydrogen (H i), defined as , where ΩH i is the cosmic abundance of H i, b H i is the linear bias of H i, and 〈f μ 2〉 = 0.552 encodes the effect of redshift-space distortions at linear order. We find for LRGs (z = 0.84), for ELGs (z = 0.96), and for QSOs (z = 1.20), with constraints limited by modeling uncertainties at nonlinear scales. We are also sensitive to bias in the spectroscopic redshifts of each tracer, and we find a nonzero bias Δ v = − 66 ± 20 km s−1 for the QSOs. We split the QSO catalog into three redshift bins and have a decisive detection in each, with the upper bin at z = 1.30 producing the highest-redshift 21 cm intensity mapping measurement thus far.

Mitigating Radio Frequency Interference in CHIME/FRB Real-time Intensity Data

Extragalactic fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a new class of astrophysical transient with unknown origins that have become a main focus of radio observatories worldwide. FRBs are highly energetic (∼1036–1042 erg) flashes that last for about a millisecond. Thanks to its broad bandwidth (400–800 MHz), large field of view (∼200 sq. deg.), and massive data rate (1500 TB of coherently beamformed data per day), the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment / Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) project has increased the total number of discovered FRBs by over a factor 10 in 3 yr of operation. CHIME/FRB observations are hampered by the constant exposure to radio frequency interference (RFI) from artificial devices (e.g., cellular phones, aircraft), resulting in ∼20% loss of bandwidth. In this work, we describe our novel technique for mitigating RFI in CHIME/FRB real-time intensity data. We mitigate RFI through a sequence of iterative operations, which mask out statistical outliers from frequency-channelized intensity data that have been effectively high-pass filtered. Keeping false-positive and false-negative rates at very low levels, our approach is useful for any high-performance surveys of radio transients in the future.

An Injection System for the CHIME/FRB Experiment

Dedicated surveys searching for fast radio bursts (FRBs) are subject to selection effects that bias the observed population of events. Software injection systems are one method of correcting for these biases by injecting a mock population of synthetic FRBs directly into the real-time search pipeline. The injected population may then be used to map intrinsic burst properties onto an expected signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), so long as telescope characteristics such as the beam model and calibration factors are properly accounted for. This paper presents an injection system developed for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB). The system was tested to ensure high detection efficiency, and the pulse calibration method was verified. Using an injection population of ∼85,000 synthetic FRBs, we found that the correlation between fluence and S/N for injected FRBs was consistent with that of CHIME/FRB detections in the first CHIME/FRB catalog. We noted that the sensitivity of the telescope varied strongly as a function of the broadened burst width, but not as a function of the dispersion measure. We conclude that some of the machine-learning based Radio Frequency Interference mitigation methods used by CHIME/FRB can be retrained using injection data to increase sensitivity to wide events, and that planned upgrades to the presented injection system will allow for determining a more accurate CHIME/FRB selection function in the near future. We also provide the full injection data sets along with usage tutorials.

Modelling repetition in zDM: A single population of repeating fast radio bursts can explain CHIME data

Abstract Regardless of whether or not all fast radio bursts (FRBs) repeat, those that do form a population with a distribution of rates. This work considers a power-law model of this population, with rate distribution $\Phi_r \sim R^{{\gamma_r}}$ between ${R_{\rm min}}$ and ${R_{\rm max}}$ . The zDM code is used to model the probability of detecting this population as either apparently once-off or repeat events as a function of redshift, z, and dispersion measure, DM. I demonstrate that in the nearby Universe, repeating sources can contribute significantly to the total burst rate. This causes an apparent deficit in the total number of observed sources (once-off and repeaters) relative to the distant Universe that will cause a bias in FRB population models. Thus instruments with long exposure times should explicitly take repetition into account when fitting the FRB population. I then fit data from The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The relative number of repeat and apparently once-off FRBs, and their DM, declination, and burst rate distributions, can be well explained by 50–100% of CHIME single FRBs being due to repeaters, with ${R_{\rm max}} > 0.75$ d $^{-1}$ above $10^{39}$ erg, and ${{\gamma_r}} = -2.2_{-0.8}^{+0.6}$ . This result is surprisingly consistent with follow-up studies of FRBs detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). Thus the evidence suggests that CHIME and ASKAP view the same repeating FRB population, which is responsible not just for repeating FRBs, but the majority of apparently once-off bursts. For greater quantitative accuracy, non-Poissonian arrival times, second-order effects in the CHIME response, and a simultaneous fit to the total FRB population parameters, should be treated in more detail in future studies.

CHIME Discovery of a Binary Pulsar with a Massive Nondegenerate Companion

Of the more than 3000 radio pulsars currently known, only ∼300 are in binary systems, and only five of these consist of young pulsars with massive nondegenerate companions. We present the discovery and initial timing, accomplished using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope, of the sixth such binary pulsar, PSR J2108+4516, a 0.577 s radio pulsar in a 269 day orbit of eccentricity 0.09 with a companion of minimum mass 11 M ⊙. Notably, the pulsar undergoes periods of substantial eclipse, disappearing from the CHIME 400–800 MHz observing band for a large fraction of its orbit, and displays significant dispersion measure and scattering variations throughout its orbit, pointing to the possibility of a circumstellar disk or very dense stellar wind associated with the companion star. Subarcsecond resolution imaging with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array unambiguously demonstrates that the companion is a bright, V ≃ 11 OBe star, EM* UHA 138, located at a distance of 3.26(14) kpc. Archival optical observations of EM* UHA 138 approximately suggest a companion mass ranging from 17.5 M ⊙ < M c < 23 M ⊙, in turn constraining the orbital inclination angle to 50.°3 ≲ i ≲ 58.°3. With further multiwavelength follow-up, PSR J2108+4516 promises to serve as another rare laboratory for the exploration of companion winds, circumstellar disks, and short-term evolution through extended-body orbital dynamics.

Machine learning classification of CHIME fast radio bursts – II. Unsupervised methods

ABSTRACT Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most mysterious astronomical transients. Observationally, they can be classified into repeaters and apparent non-repeaters. However, due to the lack of continuous observations, some apparent repeaters may have been incorrectly recognized as non-repeaters. In a series of two papers, we intend to solve such problem with machine learning. In this second paper of the series, we focus on an array of unsupervised machine learning methods. We apply multiple unsupervised machine learning algorithms to the first Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst catalogue to learn their features and classify FRBs into different clusters without any premise about the FRBs being repeaters or non-repeaters. These clusters reveal the differences between repeaters and non-repeaters. Then, by comparing with the identities of the FRBs in the observed classes, we evaluate the performance of various algorithms and analyse the physical meaning behind the results. Finally, we recommend a list of most credible repeater candidates as targets for future observing campaigns to search for repeated bursts in combination of the results presented in Paper I using supervised machine learning methods.

One-off and Repeating Fast Radio Bursts: A Statistical Analysis

According to the number of detected bursts, fast radio bursts (FRBs) can be classified into two categories, i.e., one-off FRBs and repeating ones. We make a statistical comparison of these two categories based on the first FRB catalog of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project. Using the Anderson–Darling, Kolmogorov–Smirnov, and Energy statistic tests, we find significant statistical differences (p-value < 0.001) in the burst properties between the one-off FRBs and the repeating ones. More specifically, after controlling for distance, we find that the peak luminosities of one-off FRBs are, on average, higher than the repeating ones; the pulse temporal widths of repeating FRBs are, on average, longer than the one-off ones. The differences indicate that these two categories could have distinct physical origins. Moreover, we discuss the subpopulations of FRBs and provide statistical evidence to support the existence of subpopulations in one-off FRBs and in repeating ones.

Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment detects New binary pulsar

Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment detects New binary pulsar

An Overview of CHIME, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a drift scan radio telescope operating across the 400–800 MHz band. CHIME is located at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Penticton, BC, Canada. The instrument is designed to map neutral hydrogen over the redshift range 0.8–2.5 to constrain the expansion history of the universe. This goal drives the design features of the instrument. CHIME consists of four parallel cylindrical reflectors, oriented north–south, each 100 m × 20 m and outfitted with a 256-element dual-polarization linear feed array. CHIME observes a two-degree-wide stripe covering the entire meridian at any given moment, observing three-quarters of the sky every day owing to Earth’s rotation. An FX correlator utilizes field-programmable gate arrays and graphics processing units to digitize and correlate the signals, with different correlation products generated for cosmological, fast radio burst, pulsar, very long baseline interferometry, and 21 cm absorber back ends. For the cosmology back end, the correlation matrix is formed for 1024 frequency channels across the band every 31 ms. A data receiver system applies calibration and flagging and, for our primary cosmological data product, stacks redundant baselines and integrates for 10 s. We present an overview of the instrument, its performance metrics based on the first 3 yr of science data, and we describe the current progress in characterizing CHIME’s primary beam response. We also present maps of the sky derived from CHIME data; we are using versions of these maps for a cosmological stacking analysis, as well as for investigation of Galactic foregrounds.

The observed impact of galaxy halo gas on fast radio bursts

Galaxies and groups of galaxies exist in dark-matter haloes filled with diffuse gas. The diffuse gas represents up to 80% of the mass in baryonic matter within the haloes1,2, but is difficult to detect because of its low density (particle number densities of ≲10−4 cm−3) and high temperature (mostly >106 K). Here we analyse the impact of diffuse gas associated with nearby galaxies using the dispersion measures (DMs) of extragalactic fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRB DMs provide direct measurements of the total ionized-gas contents along their sightlines. Out of a sample of 474 distant FRBs from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) FRB Catalog 1 (ref. 3), we identify a subset of events that probably intersect the dark-matter haloes of galaxies in the local Universe (<40 Mpc). The mean DM of the galaxy-intersecting FRBs is larger than that of the non-intersecting FRBs with a probability >0.99 and the excess DM is >90 pc cm−3 with >95% confidence. The excess is larger than expected for the diffuse gas surrounding isolated galaxies, but may be explained by additional contributions from gas surrounding galaxy groups, including from the Local Group. This result demonstrates the predicted ability of FRBs to be used as sensitive, model-independent measures of the diffuse gas contents of dark-matter haloes4,5,6,7.

On the relationship between the duration and energy of non-repeating fast radio bursts: census with the CHIME data

ABSTRACT A correlation between the intrinsic energy and the burst duration of non-repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been reported. If it exists, the correlation could be used to estimate the intrinsic energy from the duration, and thus could provide a new distance measure for cosmology. However, the correlation arose from small-number statistics (68 FRBs) and was not free from contamination by latent repeating populations, which might not have such a correlation. Finding a way to separate/exclude the repeating bursts from the mixture of all different types of FRBs is essential for investigating this property. Using a much larger sample from the new FRB catalogue (containing 536 FRBs) recently released by the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment)/FRB Project, combined with a new classification method developed based on unsupervised machine learning, we carried out further scrutiny of the relationship. We found that there is a weak correlation between the intrinsic energy and duration for non-repeating FRBs at z &amp;lt; 0.3, with a Kendall τ correlation coefficient of 0.239 and a significance of 0.001 (statistically significant), whose slope looks similar to that of gamma-ray bursts. This correlation becomes weaker and insignificant at higher redshifts (z &amp;gt; 0.3), possibly owing to the lack of faint FRBs at high z and/or the redshift evolution of the correlation. The ‘scattering time’ in the CHIME/FRB catalogue shows an intriguing trend: it varies along the line obtained from a linear fit on the energy versus duration plane between these two parameters. A possible cosmological application of the relationship must wait for more observations of faint FRBs at high z.

Using the Sun to Measure the Primary Beam Response of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment

We present a beam pattern measurement of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) made using the Sun as a calibration source. As CHIME is a pure drift-scan instrument, we rely on the seasonal north–south motion of the Sun to probe the beam at different elevations. This semiannual range in elevation, combined with the radio brightness of the Sun, enables a beam measurement that spans ∼7200 square degrees on the sky without the need to move the telescope. We take advantage of observations made near solar minimum to minimize the impact of solar variability, which is observed to be <10% in intensity over the observation period. The resulting data set is highly complementary to other CHIME beam measurements—both in terms of angular coverage and systematics—and plays an important role in the ongoing program to characterize the CHIME primary beam.