MG14 - Talk detail |
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Participant |
Bailes, Matthew | |||||||
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Swinburne University of Technology - PO Box 218 - Hawthorn - VIC - Australia | |||||||
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Oral abstract |
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Fast Radio Burst searches with the Molonglo UTMOST facility | |||||
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Abstract |
We are currently re-engineering the 18,000 square metre Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope so that it can search for Fast Radio Bursts in an 8 square degree field of view 24 hours a day. The new receiver system digitizes 352 30 MHz bands centred at 843 MHz and combines them coherently to search for dispersed pulses of radio emission. The new receiver system (UTMOST) is already routinely detecting pulses from the Vela and PSR J1644-4559 pulsars, proving the efficacy of the system design. In late May 2015 the final upgrade to the computer system will be delivered allowing all 352 inputs to be processed. Simulations predict that the UTMOST should be a prolific discoverer of FRBs, and the interferometric nature of the system allows it to discriminate between a man-made and celestial origin for events, unlike single-dish systems. Analysis of early data shows that the interferometer makes radio frequency interference excision extremely effective, even in the presence of mobile phone transmissions that share the observing band. The UTMOST can "piggy-back" on other observations, such as pulsar timing and map making. |
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Pdf file |
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GB1 |
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Oral abstract |
Title |
On the Celestial Nature of the Fast Radio Bursts | |||||
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Abstract |
The first known Fast Radio Burst (FRB) was the Lorimer burst (Lorimer et al. 2007), discovered in a survey conducted with the Parkes 13-beam multibeam receiver. The intensity of the event saturated the 1-bit digitizers of the filterbank and it was easily visible in three of the thirteen beams. At the time, this was interpreted as a celestial event, with dispersion measure (DM) of 375 pc/cc. Subsequent discoveries of dispersed events in all 13 beams of the receiver (dubbed the Perytons) by Burke-Spolaor et al. (2011) at similar dispersion led to a loss of interest in the Lorimer burst, and it was postulated to have had a terrestrial origin. When Thornton et al. announced the discovery of a further 4 FRBs, all in solitary beams of the multibeam receiver, and with a wide range of DMs, there was renewed confidence that the FRBs were both celestial and extragalactic. Subsequently more FRBs have been discovered, and at telescopes other than Parkes, but so has the origin of the Parkes Perytons, microwave ovens. In this paper I argue that the only definitive proof that FRBs are at cosmological distances will come from the detection of an FRB with an interferometer and describe an experiment to achieve this with the old Molonglo interferometer. |
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Pdf file |
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