Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017OCTS_BPSR_31

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巡天的扩展项目，旨在搜寻快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）时聚焦银道高纬区域。过往研究表明，该区域的FRB探测灵敏度较银道面高出至多3倍，因此我们将观测重点锁定于此。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，可实现实时爆发发现。在平方公里阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）第一阶段观测时代，实时处理传入数据是核心需求，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速率场景。本项目目前已发现5例快速射电暴，且后续发现的FRB将附带比过往所有探测结果更为丰富的关联信息：首先，本项目的发现延迟仅约1秒，而非数月乃至数年。帕克斯（Parkes）望远镜的观测将与其他射电望远镜形成协同支持——尤其是经过升级的莫隆格洛（Molonglo）望远镜，其性能已达到可独立发现3例FRB的水平——以实现对已发现FRB的精确定位；随后将根据观测需求，触发多台光学与高能波段望远镜开展后续跟进观测。这对识别FRB宿主星系至关重要，进而可破解其起源之谜，并将其作为高精度宇宙学测量工具加以开发利用。