Collaborative Research: Synergistic Study of Fast Radio Bursts and Pulsar Giant Pulse Emission

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This collaborative award will support personnel to complete a commensal search for the recently discovered Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) using the 20-m telescope at Green Bank at L-band (1.4 GHz). The project, GBTrans, will utilize existing infrastructure and development. Broader impacts of the work include research training of one graduate student and two undergrads, and outreach to high-school students and their teachers to enhance the research experience as part of the NSF-funded "Pulsar Search Collaboratory" which is run by researchers at NRAO and WVU. GBTrans will also perform extensive searches for giant pulses from known radio pulsars, and will provide constraints on the statistics of the brightest such pulses. An important capability of the instrument is its full-polarization recording, which will identify the polarization properties of FRBs and perhaps even their rotation measures.