Detection of a Fast Radio Burst at the Molonglo Radio Telescope

ATel #11675; W. Farah (Swinburne University of Technology "SUT"), M. Bailes (SUT), A. Jameson (SUT), C. Flynn (SUT), V. Gupta (SUT), I. Andreoni (SUT), T. Bateman (The University of Sydney "USyd"), E. D. Barr (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie), S. Bhandari (SUT), M. Caleb (University of Manchester), D. Campbell-Wilson (USyd), C. Day (SUT), A. Deller (SUT), A. J. Green (USyd), R. W. Hunstead (USyd), F. Jankowski (SUT), E. F. Keane (Square Kilometer Array Organisation), V. Venkatraman Krishnan (SUT), M. O'Neill (SUT), S. Oslowski (SUT), A. Parthasarathy (SUT), K. Plant (Caltech), D. C. Price (SUT), V. Ravi (Caltech), R. Shannon (SUT), D. Temby (USyd), G. Torr (USyd), G. Urquhart (USyd)
on 31 May 2018; 01:14 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Wael Farah (wfarah@swin.edu.au)

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On 2018-05-28-04:24:00.9 UTC (2018-05-28.18334375), UTMOST found a new FRB as part of the ongoing search program at the Molonglo Radio Telescope (see Bailes et al. 2017). This is the sixth Molonglo FRB overall (See ATel#10867, ATel #10697 and Caleb et al. 2017, MNRAS, 468, 3746). The FRB was discovered in real time, and voltage capture was successfully triggered (see Farah et al. 2018).

The dispersion measure (DM) of the FRB is: 899 pc cm^-3, which is substantially in excess of the Galactic DM as estimated by the NE2001 model (~69 pc cm^-3). The upper limit on the DM-inferred redshift is thus ~0.7. The S/N in the detection beam is 14, and a preliminary estimate of the event's fluence is ~ 18 +/- 4 Jyms. This is a lower limit as the event's position is poorly constrained in the North-South direction within the primary beam. The FRB's estimated width (full width half power) is 1.3 ms.

Source localisation is excellent in the Right Ascension (~ 5 arcsec at 1-sigma) but poor in Declination (~1.2 deg at 1-sigma). The most likely position is RA = 06:38:48.7, DEC = -49:53:59, J2000, Galactic: Gl = 258.87 deg, Gb = -22.35 deg. The 95% confidence localisation arc is as follows: (RA, DEC)

6.642039 -53.065500
6.642700 -52.664778
6.643347 -52.264056
6.643978 -51.863306
6.644594 -51.462583
6.645197 -51.061833
6.645786 -50.661083
6.646361 -50.260361
6.646925 -49.859611
6.647475 -49.458861
6.648014 -49.058139
6.648542 -48.657389
6.649056 -48.256639
6.649561 -47.855889
6.650056 -47.455139
6.650539 -47.054389
6.651011 -46.653667

A formula describing the localisation arc is:
RA = 6.39652461344 - 0.00642068726059*(DEC - 49.8996671717) - 3.9200674396e-05*(DEC -49.8996671717)**2
Where RA is in hours, DEC is in deg, and is valid in the DEC range [-54,-46]

A waterfall plot and localisation arc for FRB180528 can be found here.

Follow-up observations of the FRB are encouraged.