We present a sample of well-localized fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered by the MeerTRAP project at the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. We discovered the three FRBs in single coherent tied-array beams and localized them to an area of ∼1 arcmin2. We investigate their burst properties, scattering, repetition rates, and localizations in a multiwavelength context. FRB 20201211A shows hints of scatter broadening but is otherwise consistent with instrumental dispersion smearing. For FRB 20210202D, we discovered a faint post-cursor burst separated by ∼200 ms, suggesting a distinct burst component or a repeat pulse. We attempt to associate the FRBs with host galaxy candidates. For FRB 20210408H, we tentatively (0.35–0.53 probability) identify a compatible host at a redshift ∼0.5. Additionally, we analyse the MeerTRAP survey properties, such as the survey coverage, fluence completeness, and their implications for the FRB population. Based on the entire sample of 11 MeerTRAP FRBs discovered by the end of 2021, we estimate the FRB all-sky rates and their scaling with the fluence threshold. The inferred FRB all-sky rates at 1.28 GHz are $8.2_{-4.6}^{+8.0}$ and $2.1_{-1.1}^{+1.8} \times 10^3 \: \text{sky}^{-1} \: \text{d}^{-1}$ above 0.66 and 3.44 Jy ms for the coherent and incoherent surveys, respectively. The scaling between the MeerTRAP rates is flatter than at higher fluences at the 1.4σ level. There seems to be a deficit of low-fluence FRBs, suggesting a break or turn-over in the rate versus fluence relation below 2 Jy ms. We speculate on cosmological or progenitor-intrinsic origins. The cumulative source counts within our surveys appear consistent with the Euclidean scaling.
FRB 20220912A is a repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) that was discovered in Fall 2022 and remained highly active for several months. We report the detection of 35 FRBs from 541 h of follow-up observations of this source using the recently refurbished Allen Telescope Array, covering 1344 MHz of bandwidth primarily centred at 1572 MHz. All 35 FRBs were detected in the lower half of the band with non-detections in the upper half and covered fluences from 4–431 Jy-ms (median = 48.27 Jy-ms). We find consistency with previous repeater studies for a range of spectrotemporal features including: bursts with downward frequency drifting over time; a positive correlation between bandwidth and centre frequency; and a decrease in sub-burst duration over time. We report an apparent decrease in the centre frequency of observed bursts over the two months of the observing campaign (corresponding to a drop of 6.21 ± 0.76 MHz per d). We predict a cut-off fluence for FRB 20220912A of Fmax ≲ 104 Jy-ms, for this source to be consistent with the all-sky rate, and find that FRB 20220912A significantly contributed to the all-sky FRB rate at a level of a few per cent for fluences of ∼100 Jy-ms. Finally, we investigate characteristic time-scales and sub-burst periodicities and find (a) a median inter-subburst time-scale of 5.82 ± 1.16 ms in the multi-component bursts and (b) no evidence of strict periodicity even in the most evenly spaced multi-component burst in the sample. Our results demonstrate the importance of wideband observations of FRBs, and provide an important set of observational parameters against which to compare FRB progenitor and emission mechanism models.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2051007
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10484074
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 527
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 10425-10439
- Size(s):
- ["p. 10425-10439"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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