Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017APRS_BPSR_59

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，原SUPERB巡天以搜寻快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）为目标，观测覆盖银纬极高的天区。本项目将工作重心置于高银纬天区——前期研究表明，该区域内快速射电暴的可探测率相较银道面区域高出可达4倍。SUPERBx采用优化后的图形处理器（Graphics Processing Unit, GPU）代码开展脉冲星与快速射电暴的搜寻工作，可实现实时科学发现。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）一期的观测范式中，实时处理流式传入数据是核心要求，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场景。本项目已发现4例快速射电暴，相较于此前所有探测结果，这些暴源将拥有更为丰富的关联观测信息。其一，本项目的发现滞后时长仅约1秒，而非数月乃至数年。帕克斯（Parkes）望远镜的观测将得到其他射电望远镜的协同补全——尤其是经过翻新的莫朗格洛（Molonglo）望远镜，其性能现已达到可独立在2016年发现3例快速射电暴的水平——以此实现对已发现暴源的精确定位；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。这对于识别快速射电暴的宿主星系至关重要，从而能够破解其起源之谜，并将其作为高精度宇宙学测量工具以发掘其多方面应用价值。