Deciphering the origins of FRBs using local Universe CHIME/FRB discoveries

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in modern astronomy. Though a plethora of models has been proposed to explain FRBs, the origin of these extremely energetic millisecond-duration radio pulses remains a topic of great debate, owing to the paucity of well localized FRBs. One of the promising methods to narrow down their origins is by identifying their hosts and multiwavelength counterparts. Unfortunately, due to the limited sensitivity of telescopes, multi-wavelength follow-up is most promising for local Universe FRBs. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME)/FRB project has been detecting FRBs since July 2018, and many of them have sufficiently low dispersion measure (DM) suggesting a nearby origin. Even better, the localization of low-DM FRBs to a few arcminute precision using the CHIME/FRB baseband system can result in a reliable host association for nearby FRBs. In this talk, I will report on the CHIME/FRB discoveries of several local Universe FRBs. Multi-wavelength follow-ups of these local Universe FRBs will enable more stringent limits to be placed on high energy counterparts than for more distant FRBs, which are the majority of the FRBs localized to a host galaxy to date. Finally, I will also discuss the constraints we derived using these localized nearby FRBs on different proposed progenitor models, FRB energy function and the distribution of baryons in the Milky Way circumgalactic medium.