Abstract Details

Name: Shriharsh Tendulkar
Affiliation: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research & National Centre for Radio Astrophysics
Conference ID: ASI2021_660
Title : Understanding Fast Radio Bursts
Authors and Co-Authors : Shriharsh Tendulkar
Abstract Type :
Abstract Category : Vainu Bappu Award Lecture
Abstract : The decreasing cost of computational power has now allowed us to explore phase spaces of fast transient phenomena that were not previously accessible. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one such phenomena that has shown up in the past decade --- a class of millisecond radio transients that seem to arise from cosmological distances, making them at least a trillion times more luminous than radio pulsars. The propagation of FRBs through the intergalactic medium makes them promising probes of the electron and magnetic field distributions in the Universe. The mechanisms that produce FRB signals are unknown and the subject of active debate. Distinguishing between these models, requires a careful understanding of the population, characteristics, and environments of FRBs. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) with its FRB-searching backend, is uniquely powerful due to its high sensitivity and a large 250 sq. deg. field-of-view. In the past year of operations, CHIME/FRB has discovered over a thousand new FRBs, including several dozen new repeating FRB sources, a Galactic FRB, and a repeater with periodic activity. In this talk, I will review some of the recent results from CHIME/FRB and how they help us understand the origins and distributions of FRBs. I will discuss how precise localizations of nearby FRBs, as well as multi-wavelength, multi-telescope observations are required to uncover their astrophysical origins and how future facilities can achieve this goal.