Looking for fast optical bursts from FRB121102: case study for a small telescopes with sub-second temporal resolution

TL;DR

This study evaluates the capability of small telescopes with high temporal resolution to detect fast optical bursts from the repeating FRB 121102, setting upper brightness limits and analyzing field star stability.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of a small 50-cm telescope with a fast EMCCD detector for high-speed optical observations of FRBs, establishing detection limits and assessing observational potential.

Findings

No optical flares detected above 10 mJy within 10 ms.

Field stars show stable brightness on sub-second timescales.

Small telescopes can set meaningful upper limits for fast optical bursts.

Abstract

To assess the potential of a small telescopes for a high temporal resolution astrophysics, we observed the field of FRB~121102 repeating source of fast radio bursts on a 50-cm D50 telescope of Ond\v{r}ejov observatory, equipped with a fast frame rate EMCCD detector. In a three nights of observations we did not detect any optical flares from the source, which allows us to place an upper limit of 10 mJy for a brightness of possible fast optical events on a time scale of 10 ms. We also characterize the apparent brightness stability of a field stars on the same time scale in order to investigate the potential of such telescopes for detecting faint optical variability on a sub-second time scales.