GBT24B-066

Probing the dynamic environment of FRB20180301A

Abstract

Repeating Fast radio bursts (FRBs) provide a novel way to investigate the temporal evolution of the density profile and magnetic fields in the immediate environment of the burst progenitor. Monitoring such FRB sources with sensitive radio telescopes and wide frequency coverage allows for detailed studies of the spectro-polarimetric properties of the burst emission. We propose GBT observations to investigate the source of repeating FRB 20180301A. Multi-epoch observations with the Parkes radio telescope have revealed burst characteristics from this FRB source indicative of a dynamic progenitor environment. These properties include Faraday RM variation with a sign reversal, a secular decreasing trend in the observed DM, bursts with extremely narrow temporal widths ~100 us, and spectral depolarization at low frequencies ~1.2 GHz. The proposed sensitive observations will probe the dynamic environment of the FRB source. The GBT polarimetric measurements will investigate the DM-RM evolutionary trend and detect upcoming Faraday RM sign reversals. The increased detection yield will allow us to determine whether such variations correlate with periodic modulations, which can be used to distinguish models involving binary systems.

Investigators

Name Institution
Pravir Kumar * Weizmann Institute of Science
Danny Price California at Berkeley, University of
Rui Luo Australia Telescope National Facility ; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Adam Deller Swinburne University of Technology
Ryan Shannon Swinburne University of Technology
Pavan Uttarkar Swinburne University of Technology
Shivani Bhandari Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry European Research Infrastructure Consortium
Steve Croft California at Berkeley, University of
Vishal Gajjar California at Berkeley, University of
Ryan Lynch Green Bank Observatory
Hao Qiu Square Kilometre Array
Andrew Siemion California at Berkeley, University of; Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy; Nijmegen, Radboud Universiteit
Navin Sridhar Columbia University; Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal
Dave MacMahon California at Berkeley, University of

* indicates the PI