Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017APRS_BPSR_52

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，旨在对极高银纬天区开展快速射电暴（fast radio burst, FRB）搜寻工作。本项目将聚焦高银纬天区，我们此前的研究表明，该天区的FRB探测效率较银道面区域最高可达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（FRB）搜寻，可实现实时探测。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）第一阶段观测时代，实时处理接收数据至关重要，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需求。本项目已发现4例FRB，此次探测到的快速射电暴将拥有远超以往所有探测事件的关联信息：其一，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非数月乃至数年。帕克斯射电望远镜的观测将由其他射电望远镜（尤其是经过翻新的莫朗格洛望远镜——该望远镜目前的性能已使其在2016年独立发现3例FRB）予以补充，以实现对已探测FRB的精确定位，随后将根据实际需求触发大量光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这一机制对确定FRB的宿主星系至关重要，进而帮助破解其起源之谜，并充分发挥快速射电暴作为精密宇宙学测量工具的多重应用价值。