Uncanny Coincidence: Fast Radio Burst Detected After Gravitational Wave Event

On the 25th of April in 2019, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) recorded a bright, non-repeating fast radio burst( FRB).

The FRB's location in the sky fell within the credible region of the gravitational wave event, and from a similar distance.

The chance that the two events were unrelated, a team of astronomers led by Alexandra Moroianu of the University of Western Australia has determined, is extremely small.

FRBs are extremely enigmatic; only a few of them repeat, and the one-off nature of the vast majority makes them extraordinarily difficult to study.

FRB20190425A was detected the same day, at 10:46:33 UTC, within the range of sky LIGO had laid out as a plausible source of the neutron star merger, and with an upper distance limit of 590 million light-years.

The probability of the two events occurring at the distances given, the timeframe of detection, and within the region of space defined by LIGO was just 0.00019, the researchers calculated.