Parkes observations for project P892 semester 2017APRS_BPSR_60

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 4 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 four 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 in 2016) 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（SUPERB survey）的扩展项目，旨在对极高银纬天区开展快速射电暴（fast radio bursts, FRBs）搜寻工作。本项目将聚焦高银纬天区——前期研究表明，此处的快速射电暴探测灵敏度比银道面高出多达4倍。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，可实现实时发现。对于平方千米阵列（Square Kilometre Array, SKA）一期时代而言，实时处理传入数据是核心需求，因此本研究可直接适配下一代望远镜的高数据率场景。本项目已发现4例快速射电暴，且此次发现的快速射电暴将比此前所有探测结果拥有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）观测将联合其他射电望远镜开展协同观测以实现精确定位——其中尤为关键的是经过翻新升级的莫隆洛射电望远镜（Molonglo Observatory），该设备目前已达到可独立开展探测的性能水平，并于2016年独立发现了3例快速射电暴；随后将根据观测需求触发大量光学与高能望远镜开展后续观测。这对于识别快速射电暴宿主星系、破解其起源之谜，以及将其作为精密宇宙学测量工具加以利用均具有关键意义。