The Fast Radio Burst Luminosity Function from the First CHIME/FRB Catalog

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are ~millisecond-long radio transients bursting at extragalactic distances from largely unknown progenitors. Studies of the FRB population are crucial for better understanding the origins of these mysterious astrophysical phenomena, but are difficult to conduct without large numbers of FRBs and known observational biases. Recently, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Project released a catalog of 536 FRBs detected between 400 and 800 MHz, representing the first large sample of FRBs observed in a single survey. By injecting simulated events into the detection pipeline, an absolute calibration of selection effects was done to account for systematic biases and thus measure intrinsic burst property distributions. We build upon that analysis and fit a model for the FRB luminosity function, as well as infer a volumetric rate of FRBs together with its cosmic evolution. Candidate models for FRB emission should be consistent with these measurements of the energetics and abundances of the full FRB population.