An Arecibo Search for Fast Radio Transients from M87. (arXiv:2107.09687v2 [astro-ph.HE] UPDATED)

An Arecibo Search for Fast Radio Transients from M87. (arXiv:2107.09687v2 [astro-ph.HE] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Suresh_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Akshay Suresh</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Chatterjee_S/0/1/0/all/0/1">Shami Chatterjee</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Cordes_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">James M. Cordes</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Crawford_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">Fronefield Crawford</a>

The possible origin of millisecond bursts from the giant elliptical galaxy
M87 has been scrutinized since the earliest searches for extragalactic fast
radio transients undertaken in the late 1970s. Motivated by rapid technological
advancements in recent years, we conducted $rm simeq 10~hours$ of L-band
($rm 1.15-1.75~GHz$) observations of the core of M87 with the Arecibo radio
telescope in 2019. Adopting a matched filtering approach, we searched our data
for single pulses using trial dispersion measures up to $rm 5500~pc~cm^{-3}$
and burst durations between $rm 0.3-123~ms$. We find no evidence of
astrophysical bursts in our data above a 7$sigma$ detection threshold. Our
observations thus constrain the burst rate from M87 to $rm lesssim
0.1~bursts~hr^{-1}$ above $rm 1.4~Jy~ms$, the most stringent upper limit
obtained to date. Our non-detection of radio bursts is consistent with
expectations of giant pulse emission from a Crab-like young neutron star
population in M87. However, the dense, strongly magnetized interstellar medium
surrounding the central $sim 10^9 M_{odot}$ supermassive black hole of M87
may potentially harbor magnetars that can emit detectable radio bursts during
their flaring states.

The possible origin of millisecond bursts from the giant elliptical galaxy
M87 has been scrutinized since the earliest searches for extragalactic fast
radio transients undertaken in the late 1970s. Motivated by rapid technological
advancements in recent years, we conducted $rm simeq 10~hours$ of L-band
($rm 1.15-1.75~GHz$) observations of the core of M87 with the Arecibo radio
telescope in 2019. Adopting a matched filtering approach, we searched our data
for single pulses using trial dispersion measures up to $rm 5500~pc~cm^{-3}$
and burst durations between $rm 0.3-123~ms$. We find no evidence of
astrophysical bursts in our data above a 7$sigma$ detection threshold. Our
observations thus constrain the burst rate from M87 to $rm lesssim
0.1~bursts~hr^{-1}$ above $rm 1.4~Jy~ms$, the most stringent upper limit
obtained to date. Our non-detection of radio bursts is consistent with
expectations of giant pulse emission from a Crab-like young neutron star
population in M87. However, the dense, strongly magnetized interstellar medium
surrounding the central $sim 10^9 M_{odot}$ supermassive black hole of M87
may potentially harbor magnetars that can emit detectable radio bursts during
their flaring states.

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