FRB 200508 found by UTMOST

ATel #13715; 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 8 May 2020; 13:46 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Vivek Gupta (vivekgupta@swin.edu.au)

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At UTC 2020-05-08-07:42:09.5 (2020-05-08.320943), 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).

FRB200508 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: 629 pc cm^-3. The DM estimate of NE2001 model is ~144.9 pc cm^-3, and YMW16 model is ~248.2 pc cm^-3 at this position, resulting in an intergalactic excess of ~433 pc cm^-3. The upper limit on the DM-inferred redshift is thus z ~ 0.39.

An early estimate (lower limit) of the event's apparent fluence is ~29.7 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 = 14.33.

The most likely position is RA = 09:01:32.39, DEC =-65:35:42.7, J2000, Galactic: Gl = 282.02095755 deg, Gb = -12.5633715542 deg. The 95% confidence localisation arc is as follows: (RA, DEC) in (hours, deg)

9.083156 -69.939722
9.075233 -69.440667
9.067694 -68.941528
9.060517 -68.442306
9.053669 -67.943000
9.047136 -67.443611
9.040892 -66.944167
9.034922 -66.444667
9.029211 -65.945083
9.023739 -65.445472
9.018492 -64.945806
9.013458 -64.446083
9.008628 -63.946306
9.003986 -63.446500
8.999522 -62.946667
8.995228 -62.446778
8.991094 -61.946833
8.987114 -61.446889

A formula describing the localisation arc is:

RA = 9.026409 - 1.1189104e-2*(DEC + 65.69456) + 4.823077e-4*(DEC + 65.69456)**2

where RA is in hours, Dec is in deg, and is valid in the range Dec=[-61.5, -70]

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

Follow-up observations of the FRB are encouraged.