Parkes observations for project P958 semester 2018OCTS_43

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）天文学领域近期取得重大突破：重复快速射电暴FRB 121102被精准定位于亚角秒级的天区位置。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先宿主星系，因此有学者提出，重复FRB的源头可能是一颗年轻的强磁化中子星。尽管当前对重复FRB的认知正逐步加深，但目前仍不清楚其与其他FRB群体之间的关联机制。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）开展的巡天观测已探测到26次射电暴，且在未来六个月内有望再探测到12例FRB，这些暴的定位精度将达到数角秒。本研究提议对该FRB群体开展重复暴搜寻。我们将依托完整的样本集，以及对定位精度较高的射电暴实施的密集监测计划——该计划的能流极限比此前探测结果低60倍以上——要么证实额外重复FRB的存在，要么证明FRB 121102在整体FRB群体中具有独特性。