FRB191223 found at UTMOST

ATel #13363; V. Gupta (Swinburne University of Technology "SUT"), M. Bailes (SUT), A. Jameson (SUT), C. Flynn (SUT), W. Farah (SUT), T. Bateman (The University of Sydney "USyd"), D. Campbell-Wilson (USyd), C. Day (SUT), A. Deller (SUT), A. J. Green (USyd), R. W. Hunstead (USyd), A. Mandlik (SUT), M. E. Lower (SUT), S. Oslowski (SUT), A. Parthasarathy (SUT), D. C. Price (SUT), A. Sutherland (USyd), D. Temby (USyd), G. Torr (USyd), G. Urquhart (USyd), V. Venkatraman Krishnan (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie)
on 23 Dec 2019; 08:24 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Vivek Gupta (vivekgupta@swin.edu.au)

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At UTC 2019-12-23-04:55:31.2 (2019-12-23.205222222), we found a fast radio burst as part of the ongoing search program at the Molonglo telescope (UTMOST).

Molonglo is a 1.6 km long East-West array (Bailes et al 2017, PASA, 34, 45) and was operating in drift-scan mode, pointing at the meridian at the time of detection. Source localisation is excellent in Right Ascension (5 arcsec at 1-sigma) but poor in Declination (~1.2 deg at 1-sigma) (see Caleb et al 2017 MNRAS 468, 3746).

FRB191223 was found during a blind FRB search programme in real-time using an automated GPU-accelerated/machine learning-based pipeline and the raw voltages were recorded for offline processing.

The optimal dispersion measure (DM) that maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio is: 665 pc cm^-3. The DM estimate of NE2001 model is ~59.7 pc cm^-3, and YMW16 model is ~44.9 pc cm^-3 at this position, resulting in an intergalactic excess of ~605 pc cm^-3. The upper limit on the DM-inferred redshift is thus z ~ 0.55.

An early estimate (lower limit) of the event's apparent fluence is ~108.1 Jy ms (corrected for attenuation of the primary beam in the RA direction, but not in the Dec direction), with a detection signal-to-noise ratio = 29.4.

The most likely position is RA = 20:34:14.14, DEC = -75:08:54.19, J2000, Galactic: Gl = 318.854777 deg, Gb = -32.6614779 deg. The 95% confidence localisation arc is as follows: (RA, DEC) in (hours, deg)

20.498042 -77.518750
20.505189 -77.319778
20.512114 -77.120750
20.518828 -76.921667
20.525339 -76.722556
20.531658 -76.523417
20.537792 -76.324222
20.543747 -76.125028
20.549533 -75.925778
20.555156 -75.726472
20.560625 -75.527167
20.565942 -75.327833
20.571117 -75.128444
20.576153 -74.929056
20.581058 -74.729639
20.585833 -74.530194
20.590489 -74.330722
20.595025 -74.131222
20.599447 -73.931694
20.603761 -73.732167
20.607969 -73.532611
20.612075 -73.333028
20.616083 -73.133444
20.619994 -72.933806
20.623817 -72.734194

A formula describing the localisation arc is:

RA = 20.571174 + 2.61223e-2*(DEC + 75.127624) -1.79263e-3*(DEC + 75.127624)**2

where RA is in hours, Dec is in deg, and is valid in the range Dec= [-73, -77]

For the dynamic spectra, and the localisation plots, follow this link.

Follow-up observations of the FRB are encouraged.