Kavli Affiliate: Kiyoshi W. Masui
| First 5 Authors: Peter K. Blanchard, Peter K. Blanchard, , ,
| Summary:
We present deep James Webb Space Telescope near-infrared imaging to search
for a quiescent or transient counterpart to FRB 20250316A, which was precisely
localized with the CHIME/FRB Outriggers array to an area of $11times13$ pc in
the outer regions of NGC 4141 at $dapprox40$ Mpc. Our F150W2 image reveals a
faint source near the center of the FRB localization region ("NIR-1"; $M_rm
F150W2approx-2.5$ mag; probability of chance coincidence $approx0.36$), the
only source within $approx2.7sigma$. We find that it is too faint to be a
globular cluster, young star cluster, red supergiant star, or a giant star near
the tip of the red giant branch (RGB). It is instead consistent with a red
giant near the RGB "clump" or a massive ($gtrsim20$ M$_odot$) main sequence
star, although the latter explanation is less likely. The source is too bright
to be a supernova remnant, Crab-like pulsar wind nebula, or isolated magnetar.
Alternatively, NIR-1 may represent transient emission, namely a dust echo from
an energetic outburst associated with the FRB, in which case we would expect it
to fade in future observations. We explore the stellar population near the FRB
and find that it is composed of a mix of young massive stars ($sim10-100$ Myr)
in a nearby HII region that extends to the location of FRB 20250316A, and old
evolved stars ($gtrsim$ Gyr). The overlap with a young stellar population,
containing stars of up to $approx20$ M$_odot$, may implicate a neutron star /
magnetar produced in the core collapse of a massive star as the source of FRB
20250316A.
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