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© 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief, bright, extragalactic radio flashes1,2. Their physical origin remains unknown, but dozens of possible models have been postulated3. Some FRB sources exhibit repeat bursts4–7. Although over a hundred FRB sources have been discovered8, only four have been localized and associated with a host galaxy9–12, and just one of these four is known to emit repeating FRBs9. The properties of the host galaxies, and the local environments of FRBs, could provide important clues about their physical origins. The first known repeating FRB, however, was localized to a low-metallicity, irregular dwarf galaxy, and the apparently non-repeating sources were localized to higher-metallicity, massive elliptical or star-forming galaxies, suggesting that perhaps the repeating and apparently non-repeating sources could have distinct physical origins. Here we report the precise localization of a second repeating FRB source6, FRB 180916.J0158+65, to a star-forming region in a nearby (redshift 0.0337 ± 0.0002) massive spiral galaxy, whose properties and proximity distinguish it from all known hosts. The lack of both a comparably luminous persistent radio counterpart and a high Faraday rotation measure6 further distinguish the local environment of FRB 180916.J0158+65 from that of the single previously localized repeating FRB source, FRB 121102. This suggests that repeating FRBs may have a wide range of luminosities, and originate from diverse host galaxies and local environments.
Author(s): Marcote B, Nimmo K, Hessels JWT, Tendulkar SP, Bassa CG, Paragi Z, Keimpema A, Bhardwaj M, Karuppusamy R, Kaspi VM, Law CJ, Michilli D, Aggarwal K, Andersen B, Archibald AM, Bandura K, Bower GC, Boyle PJ, Brar C, Burke-Spolaor S, Butler BJ, Cassanelli T, Chawla P, Demorest P, Dobbs M, Fonseca E, Giri U, Good DC, Gourdji K, Josephy A, Kirichenko AY, Kirsten F, Landecker TL, Lang D, Lazio TJW, Li DZ, Lin H-H, Linford JD, Masui K, Mena-Parra J, Naidu A, Ng C, Patel C, Pen U-L, Pleunis Z, Rafiei-Ravandi M, Rahman M, Renard A, Scholz P, Siegel SR, Smith KM, Stairs IH, Vanderlinde K, Zwaniga AV
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature
Year: 2020
Volume: 577
Issue: 7789
Pages: 190-194
Online publication date: 06/01/2020
Acceptance date: 08/11/2019
ISSN (print): 0028-0836
ISSN (electronic): 1476-4687
Publisher: Nature Research
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1866-z
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1866-z
PubMed id: 31907402
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