Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have already provided a large wealth of interest and speculation about their origin, complemented by a large number of applications for new science that can be explored once we have a statistically significant sample of them. FRBs show an impulsive behaviour, characterised by a $\sim$\,ms-long, very energetic, burst. A growing subset of the population is now characterised by repeating bursts. The chance to observe FRBs more than once has helped constrain their properties and shaped the proposed models for their origin. The identification of its host galaxy has allowed in-depth studies of the original repeater: FRB 121102. Amongst the new repeaters, FRB 180916.J0158+65 has the lowest projected dispersion measure and was most recently localised to a nearby massive spiral galaxy. Its high activity led, most recently, to the discovery of a 5-day activity cycle of the source every $\sim 16$ days. With its closeness, its localisation, and now its periodicity, FRB 180916.J0158+65 represents the most promising candidate for investigating the properties of repeaters, which have so far been elusive in the case of FRB 121102. One outstanding question concerns the multi-wavelength emission from FRBs, which are at present only seen in the radio band. Higher energy bursts are predicted by most FRB models, either simultaneously with the radio bursts or as an afterglow, after the bursts. We propose INTEGRAL observations combined to a capillary, international, multi-wavelength campaign, led by the Sardinia Radio Telescope, with the aim of detecting for the first time this source at hard X-rays and collecting unprecedented observational information about the broadband emission properties of the source and, in turn, discriminating its nature.
The INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) mission, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on October 17, 2002, was designed to study high-energy phenomena in the universe. INTEGRAL was operating until february 2025 and it was equipped with three high-energy instruments: the Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite (IBIS), the Spectrometer on INTEGRAL (SPI), and the JEM-X (Joint European Monitor for X-rays). Its Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) provided optical V-band magnitude measurements, complementing the high-energy observations.
European Space Agency, Panessa, 2025, 'INTEGRAL observations to understand the origin of the periodicity from FRB 180916.J0158+65', 1.0, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.57780/esa-rkq6g8f
