Detection of a new fast radio burst during Breakthrough Listen observations

ATel #11376; Danny C. Price (University of California, Berkeley and Swinburne University of Technology), Vishal Gajjar (University of California, Berkeley), Aman Dhar (University of California, Berkeley), Evan F. Keane (SKA Organisation, Jodrell Bank Observatory), Andrew Jameson (Swinburne University of Technology), Andrew P. V. Siemion (University of California, Berkeley, USA), David H. E. MacMahon (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Steve Croft (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Gregory Hellbourg (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Howard Isaacson (University of California, Berkeley, USA), J. Emilio Enriquez (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Matthew Lebofsky (University of California, Berkeley, USA), David DeBoer (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Dan Werthimer (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and SUPERB Collaboration
on 2 Mar 2018; 00:46 UT
Credential Certification: Vishal Gajjar (vishalg@berkeley.edu)

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We report the detection of a fast radio burst (FRB) on UTC 2018 March 1 at 07:34:19.76, during Breakthrough Listen observations with the 21-cm multibeam receiver of the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope. The burst was detected in beam 03 of the receiver only, which was centered on J2000 coordinates RA 06:12:43.4, DEC +04:33:44.8, at a signal-to-noise ratio of ~16, peak flux density of ~0.5 Jy, dispersion measure (DM) of ~520 pc cm^-2, and burst width of ~3 ms, while observing over ~340 MHz of bandwidth centered around 1382 MHz. The spectrum appears to be positive, i.e. brighter at higher frequencies.

The burst, FRB 180301, was detected during the Breakthrough Listen (BL) Galactic plane survey [Isaacson et. al., PASP, 129, 9, 2017]. BL is foremostly a search for technologically-capable life beyond Earth; however, a real-time search for FRBs runs in tandem, using the HI-Pulsar digital system [Keith et. al., MNRAS, 409, 2, 2010; Price et. al., JAI, 5, 4, 2016; Keane et al., MNRAS, 473, 116, 2018]. The burst has also been detected with the Breakthrough Listen digital backend using an independent search technique [Gajjar et al. 2017, ATel #10675]. After detection, calibration routines were run and follow-up observations continued for approximately 2 hours; no further bursts were found. The BL digital systems record voltage-level data products to disk [MacMahon et al. arXiv:1707.06024v2], and these data have been preserved. Additional analysis is ongoing.

The Galactic contribution to the DM along this line of sight is around ~155 pc cm^-3 using the NE2001 electron density model for the Milky Way [Cordes & Lazio, arXiv:0207156v3, 2002], and 233 pc cm^-3 using the YMW16 model [Yao et al., ApJ, 835, 29, 2016]. Assuming a host Galaxy contribution of ~100 pc cm^-2, we estimate the redshift to be around ~0.2, for zero host contribution it is ~0.3.

We encourage prompt multi-wavelength follow-up. Based on the half-power beam width of the receiver, the positional uncertainty is of the order of 14 arcminutes (radius).

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