An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are an emerging class of bright, highly dispersed radio pulses. Recent work by Thornton et al. has revealed a population of FRBs in the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) survey at high Galactic latitudes. A variety of progenitors have been proposed, including cataclysmic...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/14532 |
| _version_ | 1848748648260698112 |
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| author | Petroff, E. van Straten, W. johnston, S. Bailes, M. Barr, E. Bates, S. Bhat, Ramesh Burgay, M. Burke-Spolaor, S. Champion, D. Coster, P. Flynn, C. Keane, E. Keith, M. Kramer, M. Levin, L. Ng, C. Possenti, A. Stappers, B. Tiburzi, C. Thornton, D. |
| author_facet | Petroff, E. van Straten, W. johnston, S. Bailes, M. Barr, E. Bates, S. Bhat, Ramesh Burgay, M. Burke-Spolaor, S. Champion, D. Coster, P. Flynn, C. Keane, E. Keith, M. Kramer, M. Levin, L. Ng, C. Possenti, A. Stappers, B. Tiburzi, C. Thornton, D. |
| author_sort | Petroff, E. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are an emerging class of bright, highly dispersed radio pulses. Recent work by Thornton et al. has revealed a population of FRBs in the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) survey at high Galactic latitudes. A variety of progenitors have been proposed, including cataclysmic events at cosmological distances, Galactic flare stars, and terrestrial radio frequency interference. Here we report on a search for FRBs at intermediate Galactic latitudes (–15° <b < 15°) in data taken as part of the HTRU survey. No FRBs were discovered in this region. Several effects such as dispersion, scattering, sky temperature, and scintillation decrease the sensitivity by more than 3σ in ~20% of survey pointings. Including all of these effects, we exclude the hypothesis that FRBs are uniformly distributed on the sky with 99% confidence. This low probability implies that additional factors—not accounted for by standard Galactic models—must be included to ease the discrepancy between the detection rates at high and low Galactic latitudes. A revised rate estimate or another strong and heretofore unknown selection effect in Galactic latitude would provide closer agreement between the surveys' detection rates. The dearth of detections at low Galactic latitude disfavors a Galactic origin for these bursts. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:08:23Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-14532 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:08:23Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd. |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-145322023-02-22T06:24:24Z An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes Petroff, E. van Straten, W. johnston, S. Bailes, M. Barr, E. Bates, S. Bhat, Ramesh Burgay, M. Burke-Spolaor, S. Champion, D. Coster, P. Flynn, C. Keane, E. Keith, M. Kramer, M. Levin, L. Ng, C. Possenti, A. Stappers, B. Tiburzi, C. Thornton, D. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are an emerging class of bright, highly dispersed radio pulses. Recent work by Thornton et al. has revealed a population of FRBs in the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) survey at high Galactic latitudes. A variety of progenitors have been proposed, including cataclysmic events at cosmological distances, Galactic flare stars, and terrestrial radio frequency interference. Here we report on a search for FRBs at intermediate Galactic latitudes (–15° <b < 15°) in data taken as part of the HTRU survey. No FRBs were discovered in this region. Several effects such as dispersion, scattering, sky temperature, and scintillation decrease the sensitivity by more than 3σ in ~20% of survey pointings. Including all of these effects, we exclude the hypothesis that FRBs are uniformly distributed on the sky with 99% confidence. This low probability implies that additional factors—not accounted for by standard Galactic models—must be included to ease the discrepancy between the detection rates at high and low Galactic latitudes. A revised rate estimate or another strong and heretofore unknown selection effect in Galactic latitude would provide closer agreement between the surveys' detection rates. The dearth of detections at low Galactic latitude disfavors a Galactic origin for these bursts. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/14532 10.1088/2041-8205/789/2/L26 Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd. unknown |
| spellingShingle | Petroff, E. van Straten, W. johnston, S. Bailes, M. Barr, E. Bates, S. Bhat, Ramesh Burgay, M. Burke-Spolaor, S. Champion, D. Coster, P. Flynn, C. Keane, E. Keith, M. Kramer, M. Levin, L. Ng, C. Possenti, A. Stappers, B. Tiburzi, C. Thornton, D. An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title | An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title_full | An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title_fullStr | An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title_full_unstemmed | An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title_short | An Absence of Fast Radio Bursts at Intermediate Galactic Latitudes |
| title_sort | absence of fast radio bursts at intermediate galactic latitudes |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/14532 |