Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_20

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：重复暴FRB 121102被定位至亚角秒级精度范围内。研究发现，该暴源位于遥远矮星系中的明亮射电星云（被假设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偏好宿主星系，因此有学者推测，重复快速射电暴的起源可能为年轻的强磁化中子星。尽管学界对重复快速射电暴的认知正逐步完善，但目前仍未明确其与其余快速射电暴群体之间的关联。

过去一年间，借助澳大利亚平方千米阵列探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天观测已探测到26次快速射电暴，且未来六个月内有望再发现12次快速射电暴，这些暴源的定位精度将达到数角秒级别。在此基础上，我们提出针对该暴源群体开展重复暴搜寻的研究计划。我们的完整样本集，以及针对定位精度较高的暴源实施的密集监测项目，其能流极限较此前的探测结果低60倍以上，该研究将要么证实存在更多重复快速射电暴，要么证明FRB 121102在快速射电暴群体中具备独特性。