Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017OCTS_BPSR_33

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 3 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 five 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) 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，其观测覆盖极高银纬天区，旨在搜寻快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）。本项目将研究重点置于高银纬区域——过往研究表明，该区域的FRB探测灵敏度较银道面高出可达3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工作，可实时实现科学发现。相较于平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）第一阶段的数据流处理需求，实时处理入境数据至关重要，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观测场景。本项目已发现的FRB（目前已累计发现5例）将附带远超此前所有探测案例的关联观测信息。其一，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非数月乃至数年。帕克斯（Parkes）望远镜的观测将与其他射电望远镜（尤其是已完成翻新的莫朗格洛（Molonglo）望远镜，其当前性能已达到可独立发现3例FRB的水平）形成协同互补，以实现对已发现FRB的精确定位；随后将根据实际需求触发多台光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这对于确定FRB的宿主星系至关重要，从而得以破解其起源之谜，并将其作为精密宇宙学测量的工具，充分挖掘其诸多应用价值。