Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_62

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.

近期快速射电暴（fast radio burst, FRB）天文学领域取得重大突破：重复快速射电暴FRB 121102被定位于亚角秒级精度的位置。研究发现，该暴起源于遥远矮星系中的一颗明亮射电星云——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先宿主星系，因此有观点认为，此次重复快速射电暴的源头可能是一颗年轻的强磁化中子星。尽管人们对重复快速射电暴的认知正在逐步完善，但目前仍不清楚其与其他快速射电暴群体之间存在何种关联。在过去一年中，借助澳大利亚平方千米阵探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天探测已发现26次快速射电暴，而在未来六个月内，预计还将探测到另外12次快速射电暴，其定位精度可达数角秒。本文提出，将对该快速射电暴群体开展重复暴搜寻工作。我们的全面样本与针对精确定位暴源的高密度监测计划，其通量极限比此前探测结果低60倍以上，将要么证实额外重复快速射电暴的存在，要么证明FRB 121102在该快速射电暴群体中具有独特性。