A Southern sky search for repeating Fast Radio Bursts using the Australian SKA Pathfinder [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1903.06525


We have conducted a search for bright repeating Fast Radio Bursts in our nearby Universe with the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in single-dish mode. We used eight ASKAP 12-m dishes, each equipped with a Chequerboard Phased Array Feed forming 36 beams on the sky, to survey $\sim$30,000 deg$^{2}$ of the southern sky ($-90^{\circ} < \delta < +30^{\circ}$) in 158 antenna days. The fluence limit of the survey is 22 Jyms. We report the detection of FRB 180515 in our survey. We found no repeating FRBs in a total mean observation of 3hrs per pointing divided into one-hour intervals, which were separated in time ranging between a day to a month. Using our non-detection, we exclude the presence of a repeating FRB similar to FRB 121102 closer than $z=0.004$ in the survey area — a volume of at least $9.4 \times 10^4$Mpc$^3$ — at 95% confidence.

Read this paper on arXiv…

S. Bhandari, K. Bannister, C. James, et. al.
Mon, 18 Mar 19
77/102

Comments: 7 pages, 8 figures, accepted in MNRAS