Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_47

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）天文学领域近日取得重大突破：重复快速射电暴FRB 121102被精确定位至亚角秒级精度。研究发现，该暴起源于遥远矮星系中的明亮射电星云——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选宿主天体，因此有学者提出，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完善，但目前仍不清楚其与快速射电暴其他群体间的关联。过去一年间，澳大利亚平方千米阵列探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）的巡天观测已探测到26次暴；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。本研究拟针对该暴源群体开展重复暴搜寻工作：我们的完整样本以及针对精确定位暴源的高密度监测计划，其能流密度极限较此前探测结果低60倍以上，将可验证是否存在额外的重复快速射电暴，或是确认FRB 121102在快速射电暴群体中具有独特性。