Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey

Spitler, L. G.; Freire, P. C. C.; Lazarus, P.; Lee, K. J.; Cordes, J. M.; Chatterjee, S.; Wharton, R. S.; Brazier, A.; Hessels, J. W. T.; Lorimer, D. R.; McLaughlin, M. A.; Crawford, F.; Deneva, J. S.; Kaspi, V. M.; Karako-Argaman, C.; Allen, B.; Bogdanov, S.; Camilo, F.; Jenet, F. A.; others, and

doi:10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101

Title: Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey

Full Record
Other Related Research

Abstract

Recent work has exploited pulsar survey data to identify temporally isolated, millisecond-duration radio bursts with large dispersion measures (DMs). These bursts have been interpreted as arising from a population of extragalactic sources, in which case they would provide unprecedented opportunities for probing the intergalactic medium; they may also be linked to new source classes. Until now, however, all so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been detected with the Parkes radio telescope and its 13-beam receiver, casting some concern about the astrophysical nature of these signals. Here we present FRB 121102, the first FRB discovery from a geographic location other than Parkes. FRB 121102 was found in the Galactic anti-center region in the 1.4 GHz Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) survey with the Arecibo Observatory with a DM = 557.4 ± 2.0 pc cm{sup –3}, pulse width of 3.0 ± 0.5 ms, and no evidence of interstellar scattering. The observed delay of the signal arrival time with frequency agrees precisely with the expectation of dispersion through an ionized medium. Despite its low Galactic latitude (b = –0.°2), the burst has three times the maximum Galactic DM expected along this particular line of sight, suggesting an extragalactic origin. A peculiar aspectmore »« less

Authors:

Spitler, L. G.; Freire, P. C. C.; Lazarus, P.; Lee, K. J. ^[1]; Cordes, J. M.; Chatterjee, S.; Wharton, R. S.; Brazier, A. ^[2]; Hessels, J. W. T. ^[3]; Lorimer, D. R.; McLaughlin, M. A. ^[4]; Crawford, F. ^[5]; Deneva, J. S. ^[6]; Kaspi, V. M.; Karako-Argaman, C. ^[7]; Allen, B. ^[8]; Bogdanov, S.; Camilo, F. ^[9]; Jenet, F. A. ^[10]; others, and

Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, D-53121 Bonn (Germany)
Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States)
ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA, Dwingeloo (Netherlands)
Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States)
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003 (United States)
Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave SW, Washington, DC 20375 (United States)
Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 (Canada)
Physics Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211 (United States)
Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States)

Publication Date:: Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014

OSTI Identifier:: 22365506

Resource Type:: Journal Article

Journal Name:: Astrophysical Journal

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 790; Journal Issue: 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 79 ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; ASTROPHYSICS; BRIGHTNESS; DISPERSIONS; GALAXIES; PULSARS; PULSES; RADIO TELESCOPES; SCATTERING; SOLAR RADIO BURSTS; SPECTRA

Citation Formats


                    Spitler, L. G., Freire, P. C. C., Lazarus, P., Lee, K. J., Cordes, J. M., Chatterjee, S., Wharton, R. S., Brazier, A., Hessels, J. W. T., Lorimer, D. R., McLaughlin, M. A., Crawford, F., Deneva, J. S., Kaspi, V. M., Karako-Argaman, C., Allen, B., Bogdanov, S., Camilo, F., Jenet, F. A., Knispel, B., E-mail: lspitler@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de, and others, and. Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey.  United States: N. p., 2014. 
        Web.  doi:10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101.

Copy to clipboard


                    Spitler, L. G., Freire, P. C. C., Lazarus, P., Lee, K. J., Cordes, J. M., Chatterjee, S., Wharton, R. S., Brazier, A., Hessels, J. W. T., Lorimer, D. R., McLaughlin, M. A., Crawford, F., Deneva, J. S., Kaspi, V. M., Karako-Argaman, C., Allen, B., Bogdanov, S., Camilo, F., Jenet, F. A., Knispel, B., E-mail: lspitler@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de, & others, and. Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101

Copy to clipboard


                    Spitler, L. G., Freire, P. C. C., Lazarus, P., Lee, K. J., Cordes, J. M., Chatterjee, S., Wharton, R. S., Brazier, A., Hessels, J. W. T., Lorimer, D. R., McLaughlin, M. A., Crawford, F., Deneva, J. S., Kaspi, V. M., Karako-Argaman, C., Allen, B., Bogdanov, S., Camilo, F., Jenet, F. A., Knispel, B., E-mail: lspitler@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de, and others, and. 2014.  
        "Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101.

Copy to clipboard


                    
@article{osti_22365506,

  title        = {Fast radio burst discovered in the Arecibo pulsar ALFA survey},

  author       = {Spitler, L. G. and Freire, P. C. C. and Lazarus, P. and Lee, K. J. and Cordes, J. M. and Chatterjee, S. and Wharton, R. S. and Brazier, A. and Hessels, J. W. T. and Lorimer, D. R. and McLaughlin, M. A. and Crawford, F. and Deneva, J. S. and Kaspi, V. M. and Karako-Argaman, C. and Allen, B. and Bogdanov, S. and Camilo, F. and Jenet, F. A. and Knispel, B., E-mail: lspitler@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de and others, and},

  abstractNote = {Recent work has exploited pulsar survey data to identify temporally isolated, millisecond-duration radio bursts with large dispersion measures (DMs). These bursts have been interpreted as arising from a population of extragalactic sources, in which case they would provide unprecedented opportunities for probing the intergalactic medium; they may also be linked to new source classes. Until now, however, all so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been detected with the Parkes radio telescope and its 13-beam receiver, casting some concern about the astrophysical nature of these signals. Here we present FRB 121102, the first FRB discovery from a geographic location other than Parkes. FRB 121102 was found in the Galactic anti-center region in the 1.4 GHz Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) survey with the Arecibo Observatory with a DM = 557.4 ± 2.0 pc cm{sup –3}, pulse width of 3.0 ± 0.5 ms, and no evidence of interstellar scattering. The observed delay of the signal arrival time with frequency agrees precisely with the expectation of dispersion through an ionized medium. Despite its low Galactic latitude (b = –0.°2), the burst has three times the maximum Galactic DM expected along this particular line of sight, suggesting an extragalactic origin. A peculiar aspect of the signal is an inverted spectrum; we interpret this as a consequence of being detected in a sidelobe of the ALFA receiver. FRB 121102's brightness, duration, and the inferred event rate are all consistent with the properties of the previously detected Parkes bursts.},

  doi          = {10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101},

  url          = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22365506},
  journal      = {Astrophysical Journal},

  issn         = {0004-637X},

  number       = 2,

  volume       = 790,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014},

  month        = {Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014}

}

Copy to clipboard

Journal Article:

https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/790/2/101

Other availability

Find in Google Scholar

Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal

Save / Share:

Export Metadata

Save to My Library

Similar records in OSTI.GOV collections:

Arecibo pulsar survey using ALFA. IV. Mock spectrometer data analysis, survey sensitivity, and the discovery of 40 pulsars

Journal Article Lazarus, P.; Zhu, W.; Brazier, A.; ... - Astrophysical Journal

The on-going Arecibo Pulsar-ALFA (PALFA) survey began in 2004 and is searching for radio pulsars in the Galactic plane at 1.4 GHz. Here we present a comprehensive description of one of its main data reduction pipelines that is based on the PRESTO software and includes new interference-excision algorithms and candidate selection heuristics. This pipeline has been used to discover 40 pulsars, bringing the survey’s discovery total to 144 pulsars. Of the new discoveries, eight are millisecond pulsars (MSPs; P<10 ms) and one is a Fast Radio Burst (FRB). This pipeline has also re-detected 188 previously known pulsars, 60 of themmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/812/1/81
ARECIBO PULSAR SURVEY USING ALFA: PROBING RADIO PULSAR INTERMITTENCY AND TRANSIENTS

Journal Article Deneva, J; Cordes, J; McLaughlin, M; ... - Astrophysical Journal

We present radio transient search algorithms, results, and statistics from the ongoing Arecibo Pulsar ALFA (PALFA) survey of the Galactic plane. We have discovered seven objects through a search for isolated dispersed pulses. All of these objects are Galactic and have measured periods between 0.4 and 4.7 s. One of the new discoveries has a duty cycle of 0.01%, smaller than that of any other radio pulsar. We discuss the impact of selection effects on the detectability and classification of intermittent sources, and compare the efficiencies of periodicity and single-pulse (SP) searches for various pulsar classes. For some cases wemore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/703/2/2259
NEW DISCOVERIES FROM THE ARECIBO 327 MHz DRIFT PULSAR SURVEY RADIO TRANSIENT SEARCH

Journal Article Deneva, J.; Stovall, K.; McLaughlin, M.; ... - Astrophysical Journal

We present Clusterrank, a new algorithm for identifying dispersed astrophysical pulses. Such pulses are commonly detected from Galactic pulsars and rotating radio transients (RRATs), which are neutron stars with sporadic radio emission. More recently, isolated, highly dispersed pulses dubbed fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been identified as the potential signature of an extragalactic cataclysmic radio source distinct from pulsars and RRATs. Clusterrank helped us discover 14 pulsars and 8 RRATs in data from the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey (AO327). The new RRATs have DMs in the range 23.5–86.6 pc cm{sup −3} and periods in the range 0.172–3.901 s. Themore »« less
https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/821/1/10
Arecibo pulsar survey using ALFA. III. Precursor survey and population synthesis

Journal Article Swiggum, J.; Lorimer, D.; McLaughlin, M.; ... - Astrophysical Journal

The Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array (PALFA) Survey uses the ALFA 7-beam receiver to search both inner and outer Galactic sectors visible from Arecibo (32° ≲ ℓ ≲ 77° and 168° ≲ ℓ ≲ 214°) close to the Galactic plane (|b| ≲ 5°) for pulsars. The PALFA survey is sensitive to sources fainter and more distant than have previously been seen because of Arecibo's unrivaled sensitivity. In this paper we detail a precursor survey of this region with PALFA, which observed a subset of the full region (slightly more restrictive in ℓ and |b| ≲ 1°) and detected 45 pulsars.more »« less
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/787/2/137
The repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102: multi-wavelength observations and additional bursts

Journal Article Scholz, P.; Kaspi, V.; Madsen, E.; ... - Astrophysical Journal

We report on radio and X-ray observations of the only known repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) source, FRB 121102. We have detected six additional radio bursts from this source: five with the Green Bank Telescope at 2 GHz, and one at 1.4 GHz with the Arecibo Observatory, for a total of 17 bursts from this source. All have dispersion measures consistent with a single value (∼559 pc cm{sup −3}) that is three times the predicted maximum Galactic contribution. The 2 GHz bursts have highly variable spectra like those at 1.4 GHz, indicating that the frequency structure seen across the individualmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/177

Similar Records