A real-time fast radio burst: polarization detection and multiwavelength follow-up

By E. Petroff, M. Bailes, E. Barr, B. Barsdell, N. D. Ramesh Bhat, F. Bian, S. Burke-Spolaor, M. Caleb, David J. Champion, P. Chandra and 25 more. 2014

245 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most tantalizing mysteries of the radio sky; their progenitors and origins remain unknown and until now no rapid multiwavelength follow-up of an FRB has been possible. New instrumentation has decreased the time between observation and discovery from years to seconds, and enables polarimetry to be performed on FRBs for thefirst time. We have discovered an FRB (FRB 140514) in real-time on 2014 May 14 at 17:14:11.06 UTCattheParkesradiotelescopeandtriggeredfollow-upatotherwavelengthswithinhoursof theevent.FRB140514wasfoundwithadispersionmeasure(DM)of562.7(6)cm −3 pc,giving an upper limit on source redshift of z 0.5. FRB 140514 was found to be 21 ± 7 per cent (3σ) circularly polarized on the leading edge with a 1σ upper limit on linear polarization <10 per cent. We conclude that this polarization is intrinsic to the FRB. If there was any intrinsic linear polarization, as might be expected from coherent emission, then it may have been depolarized by Faraday rotation caused by passing through strong magnetic fields and/or high-density environments. FRB 140514 was discovered during a campaign to re-observe known FRB fields, and lies close to a previous discovery, FRB 110220; based on the difference in DMs of these bursts and time-on-sky arguments, we attribute the proximity to sampling bias and conclude that they are distinct objects. Follow-up conducted by 12 telescopes observing from X-ray to radio wavelengths was unable to identify a variable multiwavelength counterpart, allowing us to rule out models in which FRBs originate from nearby ( z< 0.3) supernovae and long duration gamma-ray bursts.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9db431def6f24f38e5af563b45d12c567b3e2f88

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Citations in the corpus

A “Cosmic Comb” Model of Fast Radio Bursts (2017, background): “The origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs) remains a mystery after one decade of observations (Lorimer et al. 2007; Thornton et al. 2013; Petroff et al. 2015a; Champion et al. 2016; Masui et al. 2015; Keane et al. 2016; Spitler et al. 2016; DeLaunay et al. 2016; Chatterjee et al. 2017).”
A burst in a wind bubble and the impact on baryonic ejecta: high-energy gamma-ray flashes and afterglows from fast radio bursts and pulsar-driven supernova remnants (2016, background): “Remarkably, for some FRBs with high S/N, polarization and scattering features have been confirmed, which may indicate that the sources are in dense regions of the host galaxies, e.g., in star-forming regions (Petroff et al. 2015; Masui et al. 2015; Katz 2016).”
THE REPEATING FAST RADIO BURST FRB 121102: MULTI-WAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS AND ADDITIONAL BURSTS (2016, methodology): “However, at least two (see Thornton et al. 2013; Ravi et al. 2015), and possibly four (see Lorimer et al. 2007; Petroff et al. 2015a) of the Parkes FRBs display significant evidence of multi-path propagation/scattering, which can make their observed widths larger than their intrinsic widths.”
FAST RADIO BURSTS FROM THE INSPIRAL OF DOUBLE NEUTRON STARS (2016, background): “Up to now, 17 FRBs have been detected (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Burke-Spolaor & Bannister 2014; Spitler et al. 2014, 2016; Ravi et al. 2015; Petroff et al. 2015; Champion et al. 2015; Masui et al. 2015; Keane et al. 2016).”
A NEW ELECTRON-DENSITY MODEL FOR ESTIMATION OF PULSAR AND FRB DISTANCES (2016, background): “Currently, there are 17 known FRBs as listed in Table 14 (Petroff et al. 2016).”
Five new fast radio bursts from the HTRU high-latitude survey at Parkes: First evidence for two-component bursts (2015, background): “…in archival data that predates the first discovery (Burke-Spolaor & Bannister 2014), FRB 140514 was detected in real time allowing for fast multi-frequency follow up (Petroff et al. 2015a) and FRB 131104 was discovered during observations of the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (Ravi et al. 2015).”
The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts – II. New FRB discoveries and their follow-up. (2017, methodology): “…SKA Pathfinder (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Burke-Spolaor & Bannister 2014; Spitler et al. 2014; Masui et al. 2015; Petroff et al. 2015a, 2017; Ravi, Shannon & Jameson 2015; Champion et al. 2016; Keane et al. 2016; Ravi et al. 2016; Caleb et al. 2017; Bannister…”
FRBCAT: The Fast Radio Burst Catalogue (2016, background): “…have been made at the Parkes radio telescope (Lorimer et al. 2007; Keane et al. 2012; Thornton et al. 2013; Burke-Spolaor & Bannister 2014; Petroff et al. 2015; Ravi, Shannon, & Jameson 2015; Champion et al. 2016; Keane et al. 2016; Spitler et al. 2016), with additional discoveries made…”