The observed properties of Fast Radio Bursts

TL;DR

This empirical study analyzes the properties of 17 fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected at Parkes, revealing diverse characteristics such as scattering, temporal structure, and fluence, and explores potential relationships with dispersion measures.

Contribution

It provides a detailed observational analysis of FRB properties, including scattering timescales, fluence constraints, and variability, based on a consistent sample from Parkes.

Findings

FRBs show a wide range of scattering timescales from 0.005 ms to 32 ms.

Evidence suggests a possible relation between scattering timescales and dispersion measures.

Fluence of the Lorimer burst measured at 800±400 Jy ms.

Abstract

I present an empirical study of the properties of fast radio bursts (FRBs): Gigahertz-frequency, dispersed pulses of extragalactic origin. I focus my investigation on the sample of seventeen FRBs detected at the Parkes radio telescope with largely self-consistent instrumentation. Of this sample, six are temporally unresolved, eight exhibit evidence for scattering in inhomogeneous plasma, and five display potentially intrinsic temporal structure. The characteristic scattering timescales at a frequency of 1 GHz range between 0.005 ms and 32 ms; moderate evidence exists for a relation between FRB scattering timescales and dispersion measures. Additionally, I present constraints on the fluences of Parkes FRBs, accounting for their uncertain sky-positions, and use the multiple-beam detection of FRB 010724 (the Lorimer burst) to measure its fluence to be $800\pm400$ Jy ms. FRBs, including the repeating FRB 121102, appear to manifest with a plethora of characteristics, and it is uncertain at present whether they share a common class of progenitor object, or arise from a selection of independent progenitors.