Details on the event

01/09/2018

Joint Astrophysical Colloquium

Searching for FRBs and Galactic Transients with MeerTRAP

Ben Stappers (University of Manchester)

Thursday 16/02/2023 @ 11:30, Sala IV piano Battiferro - Presenza + remoto

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the most enigmatic astronomical sources. They are millisecond duration bursts of radio emission that originate from galaxies that range up to cosmological distances. Their origin is still not understood, and a key part of answering this question is being able to localise them to their host galaxies. Not only does this provide clues as to the progenitors but also provides accurate distances that can be used, in combination with the observed dispersion measure (which depends on the electron content in the intergalactic medium) to identify the location of the missing baryons. There is also the potential for them to be used for other cosmological probes, such as epochs of reionisation. I will present an overview of the status of the field. Then I will present the MeerTRAP project running on the MeerKAT telescope. I will also show our discoveries, their localisation and host galaxies and also what our current sample says about the more distant population of FRBs.