FRB20210303A found by UTMOST

ATel #14434; A. Mandlik (Swinburne University of Technology "SUT"), V. Gupta (SUT), M. Bailes (SUT), A. Jameson (SUT), C. Flynn (SUT), T. Bateman (SUT), D. Campbell-Wilson (The University of Sydney "USyd"), C. Day (SUT), A. Deller (SUT), W. Farah (University of California, Berkeley "UCB"), A. J. Green (USyd), M. E. Lower (SUT), S. Oslowski (SUT), D. C. Price (SUT), R. Sekhri (Alphington Grammar School), A. Sutherland (SUT), G. Torr (SUT), G. Urquhart (USyd), T. Venville (SUT)
on 3 Mar 2021; 11:31 UT
Credential Certification: Vivek Gupta (vivekgupta@swin.edu.au)

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At UTC 2021-03-03-01:28:46.9 (2021-03-03.06165), 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).

FRB20210303A 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: 366.9 pc cm^-3. The DM estimate of NE2001 model is ~37.4 pc cm^-3, and YMW16 model is ~25.2 cm^-3 at this position, resulting in an intergalactic excess of ~329.6 pc cm^-3. The upper limit on the DM-inferred redshift is thus z ~ 0.33.

An early estimate (lower limit) of the event's apparent fluence is ~37.8 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 = 21.8 .

The most likely position is RA = 22:15:52.3, DEC=-46:05:32 , J2000, Galactic: Gl = 350.7129376 deg, Gb = -53.989646 deg. The 95% confidence localisation arc is as follows: (RA, DEC) in (hours, deg)

22.273572 -50.448861
22.272372 -49.948111
22.271211 -49.447389
22.270081 -48.946639
22.268983 -48.445889
22.267917 -47.945111
22.266881 -47.444361
22.265875 -46.943611
22.264897 -46.442833
22.263947 -45.942056
22.263025 -45.441278
22.262128 -44.940500
22.261253 -44.439722
22.260406 -43.938944
22.259581 -43.438139
22.258778 -42.937361
22.257997 -42.436556
22.257236 -41.935750

A formula describing the localisation arc is:

RA = 22.264419 - 1.911549e-3 * (DEC+ 46.192395) + 5.435355e-05*(DEC +46.192395)**2

where RA is in hours, Dec is in deg, and is valid in the range Dec=[-40,-52]

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

Follow-up observations of the FRB are encouraged.