A bimodal burst energy distribution of a repeating fast radio burst source

Understand

The event rate, energy distribution, and time-domain behaviour of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) contains essential information regarding their physical nature and central engine, which are as yet unknown.

• As the first precisely-localized source, FRB 121102 has been extensively observed and shows non-Poisson clustering of bursts over time and a power-law energy distribution.
• However, the extent of the energy distribution towards the fainter end was not known.
• Here we report the detection of 1652 independent bursts with a peak burst rate of 122~hr^{-1}, in 59.5 hours spanning 47 days.