Follow-up observations of apparently one-off sources from the Parkes telescope

TL;DR

This study conducted follow-up observations of FRBs and RRATs, finding only one RRAT with confirmed repeating pulses and suggesting some sources may be repeaters, aiding understanding of their origins.

Contribution

It provides new follow-up data on apparently one-off FRBs and RRATs, including reanalysis of archival data, and identifies potential repeaters among these sources.

Findings

One RRAT shows repeating pulses with a ~1.3s period.

Three RRATs are suggested to be repeaters.

No new repeating signals detected from other sources.

Abstract

A small fraction of fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been observed with multiple bursts, whereas most Galactic sources emitting radio pulses are known to repeat. Here we present the results of follow-up observations of two FRBs and four rotating radio transients (RRATs). Among these, only one RRAT has been observed with repeating pulses, with an estimated period of around 1.297047 s. For comparison, we reanalysed the Parkes archival follow-up observations in CSIRO's data archive for all apparently one-off sources discovered by the Parkes telescopes, including 13 RRATs and 29 FRBs. In total, 3 RRATs are suggested to be repeaters, but no repeating signals were detected from the other sources. Reporting details of the non-detection observations for the apparently one-off sources would help investigate their origins, and catastrophic scenarios are worth proposing for both extragalactic and Galactic sources.