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，旨在针对银河高银纬区域开展快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）搜寻工作。我们将研究重点置于高银纬区域——过往研究表明，此处的快速射电暴可探测率相较银道面高出多达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搜寻，可实时完成探测发现。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）一期时代，实时处理实时流入的数据至关重要，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，且这些已发现的快速射电暴将附带远多于以往探测案例的关联信息：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）望远镜的观测将联合其他射电望远镜（尤其是经过翻新的莫朗格洛（Molonglo）望远镜——该望远镜目前性能已达到可独立完成3例快速射电暴探测的水平，其于2016年完成了这一独立发现），以实现对已发现快速射电暴的精确定位；随后将按需触发大量光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这一点对于识别快速射电暴宿主星系至关重要，从而助力破解其起源之谜，并将其作为精密宇宙学测量工具加以利用。