Dispersion measures of fast radio burst host galaxies derived from IllustrisTNG simulation

G. Q. Zhang, Hai Yu, J. H. He, F. Y. Wang

Published 2020-07-28Version 1

We calculate the dispersion measures (DMs) contributed by host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs). Based on a few host galaxy observations, a large sample of galaxy with similar properties to observed ones has been selected from the IllustrisTNG simulation. They are used to compute the distributions of host galaxy DMs for repeating and non-repeating FRBs. For repeating FRBs, we infer the DM$ _{\mathrm{host}} $ for FRBs like FRB 121102 and FRB 180916 by assuming that the burst sites are tracing the star formation rates in host galaxies. The median DM$_{\mathrm{host}}$ are $35 (1+z)^{1.08}$ and $96(1+z)^{0.83}$ pc cm$^{-3}$ for FRBs like FRB 121102 and FRB 180916, respectively. In another case, the median of DM$_{\mathrm{host}}$ is about $30 - 70$ pc cm$^{-3}$ for non-repeating FRBs in the redshift range $z=0.1-1.5$, assuming that the burst sites are the locations of binary neutron star mergers. In this case, the evolution of the median DM$_{\mathrm{host}}$ can be calculated by $33(1+z)^{0.84}$ pc cm$^{-3}$. The distributions of DM$_{\mathrm{host}}$ of repeating and non-repeating FRBs can be well fitted with the log-normal function. Our results can be used to infer redshifts of non-localized FRBs.