arXiv subjects

Nicole Mulyk

Publications and source records attributed to Nicole Mulyk.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Discovery of 30 Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources and Uniform Population Statistics of 80 Repeating Sources from CHIME/FRB

We present 30 newly discovered repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources from the second catalog of bursts detected by the FRB backend on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME/FRB). These repeaters have extragalactic dispersion measures (DMs) spanning $99.4-1446.0\ \text{pc cm}^{-3}$ and burst rates between $10^{-5.7}$ and $10^{-0.5}$ hr$^{-1}$ scaled to a fluence threshold of 5 Jy ms. We report evidence of monotonic, linear DM variations in four repeaters on years-long timescales. The newly discovered sources bring CHIME/FRB's total number of observed repeating FRBs to 80, 79 of which were discovered by CHIME/FRB, between 2018 July 25 and 2023 September 15. In the full CHIME/FRB sample, only 2.4$\pm 0.4\%$ of sources have been observed to repeat, and we do not find evidence for significant evolution of this value over the duration of the experiment. We find no substantial evidence for bimodal populations of one-off and repeating FRBs in their burst rate distributions; the distribution of upper limits on repeat rates implied from observations of as-yet one-offs is entirely contained within the observed range of repeater burst rates and the distributions do not appear inconsistent. Similarly, using the population analysis framework of C. W. James (2023), we find that our observations of repeating and yet-one-off FRBs are equally well fit assuming a power-law distribution of repeat rates with 50$-$100% of the population repeating.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

FRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-Off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 parsec Precision

Precise localizations of a small number of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) have enabled multiwavelength follow-up observations revealing diverse local environments. However, the 2--3\% of FRB sources that are observed to repeat may not be representative of the full population. Here we use the VLBI capabilities of the full CHIME Outriggers array for the first time to localize a nearby (40 Mpc), bright (kJy), and apparently one-off FRB source, FRB 20250316A, to its environment on 13-pc scales. We use optical and radio observations to place deep constraints on associated transient emission and the properties of its local environment. We place a $5\sigma$ upper limit of $L_{\mathrm{9.9~\mathrm{GHz}}} < 2.1\times10^{25}~\mathrm{erg~s^{-1}~Hz^{-1}}$ on spatially coincident radio emission, a factor of 100 lower than any known compact persistent radio source associated with an FRB. Our KCWI observations allow us to characterize the gas density, metallicity, nature of gas ionization, dust extinction and star-formation rate through emission line fluxes. We leverage the exceptional brightness and proximity of this source to place deep constraints on the repetition of FRB 20250316A, and find it is inconsistent with all well-studied repeaters given the non-detection of bursts at lower spectral energies. We explore the implications of a measured offset of 190$\pm20$ pc from the center of the nearest star-formation region, in the context of progenitor channels. FRB 20250316A marks the beginning of an era of routine localizations for one-off FRBs on tens of mas-scales, enabling large-scale studies of their local environments.

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arXiv2022

The Fast Flavor Instability in Hypermassive Neutron Star Disk Outflows

We examine the effect of neutrino flavor transformation by the fast flavor instability (FFI) on long-term mass ejection from accretion disks formed after neutron star mergers. Neutrino emission and absorption in the disk set the composition of the disk ejecta, which subsequently undergoes $r$-process nucleosynthesis upon expansion and cooling. Here we perform 28 time-dependent, axisymmetric, viscous-hydrodynamic simulations of accretion disks around hypermassive neutron stars (HMNSs) of variable lifetime, using a 3-species neutrino leakage scheme for emission and an annular-lightbulb scheme for absorption. We include neutrino flavor transformation due the FFI in a parametric way, by modifying the absorbed neutrino fluxes and temperatures, allowing for flavor mixing at various levels of flavor equilibration, and also in a way that aims to respect the lepton-number preserving symmetry of the neutrino self-interaction Hamiltonian. We find that for a promptly-formed black hole (BH), the FFI lowers the average electron fraction of the disk outflow due to a decrease in neutrino absorption, driven primarily by a drop in electron neutrino/antineutrino flux upon flavor mixing. For a long-lived HMNS, the disk emits more heavy lepton neutrinos and reabsorbs more electron neutrinos than for a BH, with a smaller drop in flux compensated by a higher neutrino temperature upon flavor mixing. The resulting outflow has a broader electron fraction distribution, a more proton-rich peak, and undergoes stronger radiative driving. Disks with intermediate HMNS lifetimes show results that fall in between these two limits. In most cases, the impact of the FFI on the outflow is moderate, with changes in mass ejection, average velocity, and average electron fraction of order $\sim 10\%$, and changes in the lanthanide/actinide mass fraction of up to a factor $\sim 2$.

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