Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017APRS_BPSR_04

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 4 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 four 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 in 2016) 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，旨在搜寻快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）。本项目将观测重点置于高银纬天区——过往研究表明，该区域的快速射电暴探测灵敏度较银道面高出多达4倍。SUPERBx采用优化后的图形处理器（GPU, Graphics Processing Unit）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）第一阶段的观测范式中，实时处理流式传入的数据是核心需求，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处理要求。目前本项目已探测到4例快速射电暴，这些发现将拥有远超此前所有探测案例的关联信息：其一，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非以往的数月乃至数年。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——该设备目前已达到的性能水平使其在2016年独立探测到3例快速射电暴）开展协同观测，以实现对已发现快速射电暴的精确定位；随后将根据观测需求触发大量光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这对于识别快速射电暴寄主星系、破解其起源天体之谜，以及将其作为精密宇宙学测量工具并挖掘其诸多应用价值而言，均是核心关键环节。