Real-time detection of an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio fast radio burst during observations of PSR J2124-3358

ATel #11385; Oslowski, S. (SUT); Shannon, R. M. (SUT); Jameson, Andrew (SUT); Sarkissian, J. M. (CSIRO); Bailes, M. (SUT); Andreoni, I. (SUT); Bhat, N. D. R. (Curtin); Coles, W. A.(UC SD); Dai, S. (CSIRO); Dempsey, J. (CSIRO); Hobbs, G. (CSIRO); Keith, M. J. (UM); Kerr, M. (NRL); Manchester, R. N.(CSIRO); Lasky, P. D. (Monash); Levin, Y. (FI); Parthasarathy, A. (SUT); Ravi, V. (CIT); Reardon, D. J. (Monash); Rosado, P. A. (SUT); Russell, C. J. (CSIRO); Spiewak, R. (SUT); van Straten, W. (AUT); Toomey, L. (CSIRO); Wang, J. B. (XAO); Wen, L. (UWA); You, X.-P. (SU); Zhang, L. (NAOC); Zhang, S. (PMO); Zhu, X.-J. (Monash)
on 9 Mar 2018; 07:40 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Stefan Oslowski (stefanoslowski@swin.edu.au)

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The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (Manchester et al. 2013) project monitors pulse times of arrival for 24 millisecond pulsars in the Galaxy on a fortnightly cadence using the multibeam receiver on the CSIRO 64-m Parkes Telescope. During these observations we commensally search for fast radio bursts (FRBs) using the BPSR backend and Heimdall algorithm (Barsdell et al. 2011). We have now detected our second FRB during the commensal search since commencing in June 2017. Astronomer’s Telegram 11046 describes the discovery of our first burst and the same setup was used to discover the burst described below.

On 2018-03-09 at 02:49:32.99 UTC (2018-03-09.1177429398), we detected a burst with a signal to noise ratio (S/N) of 411, at the dispersion measure (DM) of 263.47 pc cm^-3, in the field of the millisecond pulsar PSR J2124-3358 (DM = 4.60). The burst was detected in the centre beam of the receiver, which at the time was pointed at a position of (RA, DEC 21:24:43.8, -33:58:44.5). The burst width (full width at half maximum) was 0.576 ms and the early estimate of fluence is 12 Jy ms. We note that the location of the burst within the telescope beam is highly uncertain (> 0.25 deg) at the moment; consequently, the fluence measurement is biased low (Macquart & Ekers 2017). In this case the estimate of fluence is less reliable due to the dynamic range of recorded data not being sufficient and some samples overflowing (see plots). We will provide a better localisation in a separate telegram as soon as it becomes available.

This position is approximately -45.44 degrees off of the galactic plane. The galactic contribution is estimated to be 44.69 pc cm^-3 from the NE2001 model (Cordes & Lazio, 2001) and 29.97 from the YWM16 model (Yao et al. 2017). Assuming the latter model and the host contribution to the DM of 100 pc cm^-3, we estimate the redshift to be 0.187.

No repetitions were seen during 64 minutes of a subsequent observation of the same field down to S/N limit of 10, nor during 31 minutes preceding the FRB 180309. Details of total amount of time on that field during the PPTA programme will be published elsewhere.

We encourage prompt follow-up with available facilities. We note that the event occurred too close to the Sun for an immediate follow-up with the SWIFT satellite.

We used the interface available at http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/pulsar/ymw16/ to estimate the redshift.

References: Barsdell et al. 2012
Cordes & Lazio, 2001
Manchester et al. 2013
Macquart & Ekers 2017
Yao et al. 2017

FRB 180309 visualisation