Parkes observations for project P928 semester 2016APRS

Reports of the discovery of a transient counterpart to a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) with an associated host galaxy (pointing to a one-time event) and the discovery of repeating bursts from Arecibo FRB~121102 (implying a recurring source) provide strong evidence that, like gamma-ray bursts, FRBs consist of two source classes. A key question that follows on from these is what fraction of FRBs repeat versus a one-time phenomenon. Motivated by these developments, we plan a 1-year campaign to observe the original FRB, 010724, aka the Lorimer burst with the Parkes telescope. This new project will more than double the amount of time previously spent on this object and be sensitive to bursts with peak fluxes of 100 mJy or less. Our rationale for a focused study of
this FRB in particular is its high flux density. Our proposed observations have in principle the highest sensitivity to repeating bursts for any currently known FRB visible from Parkes. In this sense, FRB 010724 is to FRBs what 0437-4715 is for millisecond pulsars. FRBs are currently one of the hottest topics in astrophysics and our study will help answer the question of what fraction of FRBs repeat and therefore further our understanding of these enigmatic objects.