Statistical inference of the distance to ASKAP FRBs

Understand

The distances to fast radio bursts (FRBs) are crucial for understanding their underlying engine, and for their use as cosmological probes.

• In this paper, we provide three statistical estimates of the distance to ASKAP FRBs.
• First, we show that the number of events of similar luminosity in ASKAP does not scale as distance cubed, as one would expect, when directly using the observed dispersion measure (DM) to infer distance.
• Second, by comparing the average DMs of FRBs observed with different instruments, we estimated the average redshift of ASKAP FRBs to be $z\sim 0.01$ using CHIME and ASKAP, and $z\lesssim0.07$ using Parkes and ASKAP.