Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017OCTS_BPSR_44

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巡天项目的扩展项目，其瞄准银河银纬极高的天区，用于搜寻快速射电暴（Fast Radio Bursts, FRBs）。本项目将聚焦于高银河银纬天区——我们此前的研究表明，该天区的FRB探测灵敏度较银道面区域高出最多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，可实时完成发现成果的输出。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）第一阶段的观测时代，实时处理即时流入的数据是核心要求，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传输需求。本项目目前已发现5例快速射电暴，且本次发现的FRB将拥有远超此前所有探测案例的配套关联信息。其一，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非此前的数月乃至数年。帕克斯（Parkes）观测将与其他射电望远镜形成协同观测——尤其是经过翻新升级后的莫朗格洛（Molonglo）射电望远镜，其目前的性能已达到可独立发现3例FRB的水平——以实现对已探测FRB的精确定位；随后将根据实际需求触发一系列光学与高能波段望远镜开展后续观测。这对于确定FRB的宿主星系至关重要，进而帮助我们解开FRB起源之谜，并将其作为精密宇宙学测量工具的诸多应用价值充分挖掘。