Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_10

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.

快速射电暴（fast radio burst, FRB）天文学领域近期取得重大突破：研究人员已实现重复快速射电暴FRB 121102的亚角秒级精确定位。研究发现，该暴源源自遥远矮星系内的明亮射电星云——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，因此学界推测，重复快速射电暴的源可能为年轻强磁化中子星。尽管学界对重复快速射电暴的认知正逐步深化，但目前仍不清楚其与其他暴源群体之间的关联。过去一年间，借助澳大利亚平方千米阵探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天搜寻已探测到26次射电暴，且未来六个月内有望再探测到12例快速射电暴，这些暴源的定位精度将达到数角秒级别。本研究提议针对该暴源群体开展重复暴搜寻。我们将通过完整的样本采集与针对精确定位射电暴的高密度监测计划，该计划的通量极限较此前探测结果低60倍以上，最终将要么证实额外重复快速射电暴的存在，要么证明FRB 121102在暴源群体中具有独特性。