Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017OCTS_BPSR_20

SUPERBx is an extension to the SUPERB survey which looks at the highest Galactic latitudes in a search for fast radio bursts (FRBs). We will focus our efforts at high Galactic latitudes where our previous work has shown FRB detectability to be as much as 3 times higher than in the plane. SUPERBx uses optimised GPU codes to search for pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs), making discoveries in real time. Handling our data as it comes in is essential for the SKA Phase I era so this work applies directly to the high-data rates of next generation telescopes. The FRBs discovered (we have already discovered five FRBs in this project) will have much more associated information than all previous detections. Firstly our discovery lag is ~1 second, rather than months/years. The Parkes observations will be shadowed by other radio telescopes (in particular the refurbished Molonglo which has now reached a level of performance where it has independently discovered 3 FRBs) to allow localisation of the discovered FRBs, and a host of optical and high-energy telescopes will then be triggered as appropriate. This is key for identifying FRB host galaxies, so as to solve the mystery of their progenitors and to exploit their many uses as tools for precision cosmology measurements.

SUPERBx是SUPERB巡天的扩展项目，旨在搜寻银道面最高纬度区域内的快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）。我们将研究重点置于高银纬区域——过往研究证实，该区域的快速射电暴探测灵敏度相较银道面最高可达3倍。SUPERBx采用经过优化的图形处理器（Graphics Processing Unit, GPU）代码开展脉冲星与快速射电暴搜寻工作，可实现实时科学发现。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）一期项目时代，实时处理传入数据是至关重要的环节，因此本项目的技术方案可直接适配下一代望远镜的高数据率场景。本项目已发现的快速射电暴（目前已在此项目中探测到5例）将比此前所有已探测快速射电暴拥有更为丰富的关联信息。其一，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非数月甚至数年。帕克斯（Parkes）望远镜的观测将与其他射电望远镜（尤其是经过翻新的莫朗格洛（Molonglo）望远镜——其当前性能已达到可独立探测3例快速射电暴的水平）形成协同，以完成对已发现快速射电暴的定位；随后将根据观测需求触发一系列光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这对于确定快速射电暴宿主星系至关重要，进而能够解开其起源之谜，并将其作为精密宇宙学测量工具加以开发利用。