Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2017OCTS_BPSR_03

A major breakthrough in fast radio burst (FRB) astronomy was recently made when the repeating FRB 121102 was localized to sub-arcsecond precision. The bursts were found to originate in a bright radio nebula (hypothesized to be a young supernova remnant or pulsar wind nebulae) in a distant dwarf galaxy. These dwarf galaxies are also preferential hosts to superluminous supernova and long gamma-ray bursts, and it has been therefore suggested that the source of the repeating FRB could be a young highly magnetised neutron star. While an understanding of the repeating FRB is emerging, it is still unclear what relationship it has to the rest of the population. Over the next six months, searches with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) are poised to nearly triple the known FRB population. Here we propose to search this population for repeats. Our comprehensive sample and a dense monitoring campaign of well localised bursts, at a fluence limit more than 60 times lower than that of their detections, will either confirm the presence of additional repeating FRBs or the uniqueness of FRB 121102 amongst the population.

快速射电暴（FRB）天文学领域近期取得重大突破：重复暴FRB 121102被定位至亚角秒精度。观测发现这些爆发源自遥远矮星系中的一个明亮射电星云（推测为年轻超新星遗迹（supernova remnant）或脉冲星风云（pulsar wind nebulae））。此类矮星系亦是超亮超新星（superluminous supernova）与长伽马射线暴（long gamma-ray bursts）的偏好宿主，因此有观点认为重复FRB的源头可能是一颗年轻的高磁化中子星（highly magnetised neutron star）。尽管对重复FRB的认知正逐步形成，但其与FRB群体中其他成员的关系仍不明确。

未来六个月内，利用澳大利亚平方公里阵列探路者（ASKAP）开展的搜索有望使已知FRB数量增至近三倍。本研究拟对该群体开展重复暴搜索。我们的全面样本及针对精确定位爆发的密集监测计划（其流量极限比探测阈值低60倍以上），或将证实存在更多重复FRB，或揭示FRB 121102在该群体中的独特性。