Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_65

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。该暴源被发现位于一个遥远矮星系中的明亮射电星云（学界推测其为年轻超新星遗迹或脉冲星风云）之内。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，因此有学者提出，重复快速射电暴的源可能是一颗年轻的高磁化中子星。尽管学界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FRB群体之间存在何种关联。
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）开展的巡天搜索已探测到26次快速射电暴，且在未来六个月内有望再探测到12次FRB，这些新发现的暴源将被定位至数角秒级精度。本研究拟对该FRB群体开展重复暴搜寻工作。我们将依托完备的样本数据集，以及对精确定位暴源的高密度监测计划，将能流探测极限设定为此前探测结果的1/60以下——这一方案将要么证实存在更多重复快速射电暴，要么证明FRB 121102在整个FRB群体中具有独特性。