Hints of a universal width–energy relation for classified fast radio bursts

Abstract

The total available sample of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been growing steadily in recent years, facilitating the study of FRBs from a statistical point of view. At the same time, the classification of FRBs is currently an imperative issue. We propose that the brightness temperature of bursts can serve as an ideal criterion for classification. In this work, we gather the available data for all localized FRBs and we find a positive relation between the intrinsic pulse width and burst energy, Ti ∝ Eν0.25, for three repeating FRBs that is similar to that of our previous work using FRB 20121102A data alone. The critical line TB, cri is found to vary for different FRBs, which may reflect the differences in source properties. This relation can put strong constraints on mainstream radiation mechanisms. It is evident that neither the coherent curvature radiation or synchrotron maser radiation have the capability to reach the high brightness temperature required to reproduce this relation.