Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_51

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 last year searches with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) have detected 26 bursts, and over the next six month will likely detect another 12 FRBs, which will be localized to a few arcseconds. 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 burst, FRB）天文学领域近期取得重大突破：重复暴FRB 121102被精确定位至亚角秒精度范围内。观测发现其暴发源自遥远矮星系中的明亮射电星云——该星云被推测为年轻超新星遗迹或脉冲星风云。这类矮星系同时也是超亮超新星与长伽马射线暴的优选宿主星系，因此有研究者提出，重复快速射电暴的源头可能为年轻强磁化中子星。尽管我们对重复快速射电暴的认知正逐步完善，但目前仍不清楚其与其他快速射电暴群体间的关联。

过去一年间，依托澳大利亚平方千米阵列探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天观测已探测到26次快速射电暴；未来六个月内，预计还将探测到另外12次可被定位至数角秒精度范围内的快速射电暴。

本研究拟针对该快速射电暴群体开展重复暴搜寻工作。我们将采用完备的样本集，并对已精确定位的暴源开展高密度监测，监测能流极限较此前探测阈值低60倍以上；该研究要么将证实存在更多重复快速射电暴，要么将证明FRB 121102在整个快速射电暴群体中具有独特性。