No Evidence for Galactic Latitude Dependence of the Fast Radio Burst Sky Distribution.

We investigate whether the sky rate of fast radio bursts (FRBs) depends on Galactic latitude using the first catalog of FRBs detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst (CHIME/FRB) Project. We first select CHIME/FRB events above a specified sensitivity threshold in consideration of the radiometer equation, and then we compare these detections with the expected cumulative time-weighted exposure using Andersonâ€"Darling and Kolmogorovâ€"Smirnov tests. These tests are consistent with the null hypothesis that FRBs are distributed without Galactic latitude dependence (p -values distributed from 0.05 to 0.99, depending on completeness threshold). Additionally, we compare rates in intermediate latitudes (∣ b ∣ < 15°) with high latitudes using a Bayesian framework, treating the question as a biased coin-flipping experimentâ€"again for a range of completeness thresholds. In these tests the isotropic model is significantly favored (Bayes factors ranging from 3.3 to 14.2). Our results are consistent with FRBs originating from an isotropic population of extragalactic sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]