Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2019APRS_04

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) continue to raise more questions than they answer. Until a few months ago, only one burst – the only one known to repeat - had been localized to a bright radio nebula (either a young supernova remnant or pulsar wind nebulae) in a distant dwarf galaxy.
Over the last year searches with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) have detected 28 bursts, two of which have been localised to host galaxies at redshifts > 0.3. These bursts and their hosts are very unlike the repeater, suggesting there may be a dichotomy in the population. Over the next six months we expect to detect another 12 FRBs, which will also have sub-arcsecond localisations. 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（Fast Radio Bursts, FRBs）至今仍带来的疑问远多于其已解答的问题。直至数月前，仅有一种暴——即目前已知唯一会重复爆发的快速射电暴——被精确定位至遥远矮星系中的明亮射电星云（要么为年轻超新星遗迹，要么为脉冲星风云）。
过去一年间，依托澳大利亚平方公里阵列探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天探测已发现28次快速射电暴，其中两例被精确定位至红移大于0.3的宿主星系。这些暴体及其宿主星系与该重复暴体特征迥异，暗示快速射电暴的种群或存在二分性。
未来六个月内，我们预计将再探测到12次快速射电暴，且这些暴体同样将具备亚角秒级的精确定位精度。
本研究拟针对该快速射电暴种群开展重复爆发搜寻工作。
我们将依托覆盖全面的样本，以及针对已精确定位暴体的高密度监测计划——其能流探测阈值较此前的探测阈值低60倍以上——要么证实存在更多重复爆发的快速射电暴，要么验证FRB 121102在该种群中的独特性。