THE SEARCH FOR COINCIDENT GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM FAST RADIO BURSTS WITH THE HAWC OBSERVATORY

Abstract

In 2007 a new class of radio transients was discovered, coming from outside of our galaxy with high fluence emitted in the radio band on millisecond timescales. These bursts of radio waves emitted within an order of magnitude of the power of the least bright gamma- ray bursts. These fast radio bursts (FRBs) have since become the target of many searches across radio observatories and multiwavelength follow-up campaigns, but their origin re- mains unknown. In order to understand more about these fascinating events, continued multiwavelength follow-ups are necessary to provide a more complete picture. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a very-high-energy gamma-ray detector covering the range of 100 GeV to 300 TeV that is well suited to the detection of transient phenomena due its high live-time and wide field of view, and in particular for a follow- up search on FRBs to determine possible very high energy gamma-ray coincidences. The search for gamma-ray signals from FRBs consists of two searches: first is a persistent source search to identify if FRB emission ever comes from TeV gamma-ray emitting galax- ies, and a transient search centered on the reported burst time and location. The results of the FRB search within the HAWC data sets the most constraining limits on the widestpopulation of FRBs ever searched in the VHE band.