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We report on a search for Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) with the Green Bank Northern Celestial Cap (GBNCC) Pulsar Survey at 350 MHz. Pointings amounting to a total on-sky time of 61 days were searched to a DM of 3000 pc cm$^{-3}$ while the rest (23 days; 29% of the total time) were searched to a DM of 500 pc cm$^{-3}$. No FRBs were detected in the pointings observed through May 2016. We estimate a 95% confidence upper limit on the FRB rate of $3.6times 10^3$ FRBs sky$^{-1}$ day$^{-1}$ above a peak flux density of 0.63 Jy at 350 MHz for an intrinsic pulse width of 5 ms. We place constraints on the spectral index $alpha$ by running simulations for different astrophysical scenarios and cumulative flux density distributions. The non-detection with GBNCC is consistent with the 1.4-GHz rate reported for the Parkes surveys for $alpha > +0.35 $ in the absence of scattering and free-free absorption and $alpha > -0.3$ in the presence of scattering, for a Euclidean flux distribution. The constraints imply that FRBs exhibit either a flat spectrum or a spectral turnover at frequencies above 400 MHz. These constraints also allow estimation of the number of bursts that can be detected with current and upcoming surveys. We predict that CHIME may detect anywhere from several to $sim$50 FRBs a day (depending on model assumptions), making it well suited for interesting constraints on spectral index, the log $N$-log $S$ slope and pulse profile evolution across its bandwidth (400-800 MHz).
The detection of six Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) has recently been reported. FRBs are short duration ($sim$ 1 ms), highly dispersed radio pulses from astronomical sources. The physical interpretation for the FRBs remains unclear but is thought to involve highly compact objects at cosmological distance. It has been suggested that a fraction of FRBs could be physically associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Recent radio observations of GRBs have reported the detection of two highly dispersed short duration radio pulses using a 12 m radio telescope at 1.4 GHz. Motivated by this result, we have performed a systematic and sensitive search for FRBs associated with GRBs. We have observed five GRBs at 2.3 GHz using a 26 m radio telescope located at the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory, Hobart. The radio telescope was automated to rapidly respond to Gamma-ray Coordination Network notifications from the Swift satellite and slew to the GRB position within $sim$ 140 s. The data were searched for pulses up to 5000 pc $rm cm^{-3}$ in dispersion measure and pulse widths ranging from 640 $rm mu$s to 25.60 ms. We did not detect any events $rm geq 6 sigma$. An in-depth statistical analysis of our data shows that events detected above $rm 5 sigma$ are consistent with thermal noise fluctuations only. A joint analysis of our data with previous experiments shows that previously claimed detections of FRBs from GRBs are unlikely to be astrophysical. Our results are in line with the lack of consistency noted between the recently presented FRB event rates and GRB event rates.
We report the first discovery of a fast radio burst (FRB), FRB 20200125A, by the Green Bank Northern Celestial Cap (GBNCC) Pulsar Survey conducted with the Green Bank Telescope at 350 MHz. FRB 20200125A was detected at a Galactic latitude of 58.43 degrees with a dispersion measure of 179 pc cm$^{-3}$, while electron density models predict a maximum Galactic contribution of 25 pc cm$^{-3}$ along this line of sight. Moreover, no apparent Galactic foreground sources of ionized gas that could account for the excess DM are visible in multi-wavelength surveys of this region. This argues that the source is extragalactic. The maximum redshift for the host galaxy is $z_{max}=0.17$, corresponding to a maximum comoving distance of approximately 750 Mpc. The measured peak flux density for FRB 20200125A is 0.37 Jy, and we measure a pulse width of 3.7 ms, consistent with the distribution of FRB widths observed at higher frequencies. Based on this detection and assuming an Euclidean flux density distribution of FRBs, we calculate an all-sky rate at 350 MHz of $3.4^{+15.4}_{-3.3} times 10^3$ FRBs sky$^{-1}$ day$^{-1}$ above a peak flux density of 0.42 Jy for an unscattered pulse having an intrinsic width of 5 ms, consistent with rates reported at higher frequencies. Given the recent improvements in our single-pulse search pipeline, we also revisit the GBNCC survey sensitivity to various burst properties. Finally, we find no evidence of interstellar scattering in FRB 20200125A, adding to the growing evidence that some FRBs have circumburst environments where free-free absorption and scattering are not significant.
We report on the first millisecond timescale radio interferometric search for the new class of transient known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). We used the Very Large Array (VLA) for a 166-hour, millisecond imaging campaign to detect and precisely localize an FRB. We observed at 1.4 GHz and produced visibilities with 5 ms time resolution over 256 MHz of bandwidth. Dedispersed images were searched for transients with dispersion measures from 0 to 3000 pc/cm3. No transients were detected in observations of high Galactic latitude fields taken from September 2013 though October 2014. Observations of a known pulsar show that images typically had a thermal-noise limited sensitivity of 120 mJy/beam (8 sigma; Stokes I) in 5 ms and could detect and localize transients over a wide field of view. Our nondetection limits the FRB rate to less than 7e4/sky/day (95% confidence) above a fluence limit of 1.2 Jy-ms. Assuming a Euclidean flux distribution, the VLA rate limit is inconsistent with the published rate of Thornton et al. We recalculate previously published rates with a homogeneous consideration of the effects of primary beam attenuation, dispersion, pulse width, and sky brightness. This revises the FRB rate downward and shows that the VLA observations had a roughly 60% chance of detecting a typical FRB and that a 95% confidence constraint would require roughly 500 hours of similar VLA observing. Our survey also limits the repetition rate of an FRB to 2 times less than any known repeating millisecond radio transient.
We present two searches for IceCube neutrino events coincident with 28 fast radio bursts (FRBs) and one repeating FRB. The first improves upon a previous IceCube analysis -- searching for spatial and temporal correlation of events with FRBs at energies greater than roughly 50 GeV -- by increasing the effective area by an order of magnitude. The second is a search for temporal correlation of MeV neutrino events with FRBs. No significant correlation is found in either search, therefore, we set upper limits on the time-integrated neutrino flux emitted by FRBs for a range of emission timescales less than one day. These are the first limits on FRB neutrino emission at the MeV scale, and the limits set at higher energies are an order-of-magnitude improvement over those set by any neutrino telescope.
In this paper we identify some sub-optimal performance in algorithms that search for Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which can reduce the cosmological volume probed by over 20%, and result in missed discoveries and incorrect flux density and sky rate determinations. Re-calculating parameters for all of the FRBs discovered with the Parkes telescope (i.e. all of the reported FRBs bar one), we find some inconsistencies with previously determined values, e.g. FRB 010125 was approximately twice as bright as previously reported. We describe some incompleteness factors not previously considered which are important in determining accurate population statistics, e.g. accounting for fluence incompleteness the Thornton et al. all-sky rate can be re-phrased as ~2500 FRBs per sky per day above a 1.4-GHz fluence of ~2 Jy ms. Finally we make data for the FRBs easily available, along with software to analyse these.