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A Synoptic View of Fast Radio Bursts with CHIME

ORAL

Abstract

For more than a decade, enigmatic extragalactic flashes called fast radio bursts (FRBs) have defied a definitive explanation for their origin. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is the only radio telescope capable of instantaneously observing hundreds of square degrees with the sensitivity of a 100-meter scale aperture. As a result, its transient search instrument, CHIME/FRB, has detected thousands of FRBs in its first few years of operations, increasing the known sample by an order of magnitude. I will give an update of CHIME/FRB's most recent results, where observations of particular sources and statistical analyses of the FRB population are starting to reveal the nature of this mysterious phenomenon. I will conclude by describing efforts to augment CHIME's capabilities by adding Outrigger telescopes, which will be located across North America and will precisely localize FRB sources using very long baseline interferometry. These localizations will enable multiwavelength followup and studies of the source environments, providing a new handle on FRB progenitors.

Publication: The CHIME/FRB Collaboration et al 2021 ApJS 257 59

Presenters

  • Kiyoshi Masui

    MIT, Massachusetts Instutue of Technology

Authors

  • Kiyoshi Masui

    MIT, Massachusetts Instutue of Technology