Possible Association of the CHIME Repeating FRB 190116.J1249+27 with the Coma Cluster
ATel #13018; Gregg Hallinan, Dillon Dong, Vikram Ravi (Caltech)
on 13 Aug 2019; 04:42 UT
Credential Certification: Gregg Hallinan (gh@astro.caltech.edu)
Subjects: Radio, Transient, Fast Radio Burst
The CHIME/FRB collaboration has reported the detection of eight new repeating FRBs (Anderson et al. 2019, arXiv:1908.03507). The localization region of one of these, FRB 181030.J1054+73, contains a galaxy at 22 Mpc (NGC 3403), as identified by Anderson et al. (2019). We have cross-matched the localization regions of the remaining seven FRBs with known galaxies within 200 Mpc. Only one of this remaining sample, FRB 190116.J1249+27, yields a match, notably with 5 galaxies within the 90-percentile error region. All of these galaxies are at a similar redshift (z~0.02) and are consistent with being members of the Coma cluster or a filament extending from the Coma cluster (Mahajan et al. 2018, 2018MNRAS.478.4336M). The galaxy closest to the center of the localization region, NGC 4702, is particularly interesting, with a mass of ~10^9 solar masses and a star formation rate of ~1 solar mass per year. This very high specific star formation rate is analogous to the host galaxy of FRB 121102. If FRB 190116.J1249+27 is indeed associated with the Coma cluster, it would be the closest FRB source and an excellent candidate for multi-wavelength follow-up. We therefore encourage efforts to better localize this FRB, while recognizing the poorly constrained false alarm probability for the association.
