Utilizing localized fast radio bursts to constrain their progenitors and the expansion history of the Universe

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are increasingly being used for cosmological applications such as measuring the Hubble constant and baryon abundance. The increasing number of localized FRBs and precise measurement of dispersion measure (DM) make them a suitable probe for such an approach. We use a sample of 110 localized FRBs as well as a small sub-sample of 24 FRBs with scattering timescale measurements or limits. We infer the Hubble constant (H₀) and the DM distribution of the host galaxies simultaneously by fitting our model to the FRB DM measurements. With current data, our results are in agreement with both high and low redshift measurements of H₀, obtained using Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Type Ia supernovae data respectively. We project that with about 200 localized FRBs, we would be in a position to distinguish between the two scenarios at 4 confidence. In addition, the host DM is expected to be related to star formation in the host galaxy and the stellar age of the progenitors. Using our inferred host galaxy DMs, we are able to rule out (at 95 percent confidence) a majority of localized FRB progenitors originating from young sources with stellar ages less than 10 Myr. This might reflect a large population of old sources or an observational bias against detecting FRBs from young sources, which may be associated with long scatter broadening times and large DM from their source environments. Indeed, we find that scatter broadening times of FRBs are inconsistent with the Milky Way ISM, but at the same time, do not appear to be strongly correlated with the FRBs' redshift or with the SFR or stellar mass of their host galaxies. This suggests that scattering is dominated by the immediate environment of the sources.