Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_BPSR_02

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被精确定位至亚角秒级精度。研究发现，该暴源源自遥远矮星系内的明亮射电星云，学界推测其为年轻超新星遗迹（supernova remnant）或脉冲星风云（pulsar wind nebulae）。此类矮星系同时也是超亮超新星（superluminous supernova）与长伽马射线暴（long gamma-ray bursts）的偏好宿主星系，因此有假说提出，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其他暴源群体的关联。过去一年间，依托澳大利亚平方千米阵列探路者（Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, ASKAP）开展的巡天搜寻已探测到26次射电暴；预计未来六个月内，或将再探测到12例快速射电暴，这些暴源的定位精度将达到数角秒级别。本研究拟针对该暴源群体开展重复暴搜寻工作。我们将通过覆盖完整样本的观测方案，以及对定位精度较高的暴源实施的密集监测计划，将注量探测极限降至现有探测结果的1/60以上，最终或可证实额外重复快速射电暴的存在，或是证明FRB 121102在暴源群体中具备独特性。