A search for rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts in the Parkes high-latitude pulsar survey

TL;DR

This study conducted a wide-range single-pulse radio search in archival Parkes data, re-detected known pulsars, found no new FRBs, and estimated an all-sky FRB rate consistent with previous surveys, refining our understanding of FRB distribution.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive re-analysis of archival data, correcting for detection sensitivities, and offers a revised estimate of the all-sky FRB rate at intermediate Galactic latitudes.

Findings

Re-detected 20 pulsars and one rotating radio transient.

Found no new FRBs in the survey data.

Estimated the all-sky FRB rate as approximately 4,400 per day for sources above 4.0 Jy ms.

Abstract

Discoveries of rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts (FRBs) in pulsar surveys suggest that more of such transient sources await discovery in archival data sets. Here we report on a single-pulse search for dispersed radio bursts over a wide range of Galactic latitudes (|b| < $60^{\circ}$) in data previously searched for periodic sources by Burgay et al. We re-detected 20 of the 42 pulsars reported by Burgay et al. and one rotating radio transient reported by Burke-Spolaor. No FRBs were discovered in this survey. Taking into account this result, and other recent surveys at Parkes, we corrected for detection sensitivities based on the search software used in the analyses and the different backends used in these surveys and find that the all-sky FRB event rate for sources with a fluence above 4.0 Jy ms at 1.4 GHz to be ${\cal R} = 4.4^{+5.2}_{-3.1} \times 10^3$ FRBs day$^{-1}$ sky$^{-1}$, where the uncertainties represent a $99\%$ confidence interval. While this rate is lower than inferred from previous studies, as we demonstrate, this combined event rate is consistent with the results of all systematic FRB searches at Parkes to date and does not require the need to postulate a dearth of FRBs at intermediate latitudes.