Trial dispersion measure spacing in fast radio burst searches with HEIMDALL

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dispersion measure tolerance parameter in the FRB search tool HEIMDALL, providing a relation to improve survey completeness and better understand the detected FRB population.

Contribution

It establishes a relation between the dispersion measure tolerance and search depth, enabling more accurate retro-fitting of FRB samples for survey completeness.

Findings

Relation between dispersion measure tolerance and search depth derived

Improved methods for retro-fitting FRB samples to account for survey completeness

Enhanced understanding of the link between detected FRBs and underlying population

Abstract

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief flashes of emission detectable to cosmological distances. Cosmology applications rely on an understanding of how the detected sample relates to the underlying population. To this end we examine the dispersion measure `tolerance' parameter employed by the FRB search tool \textsc{heimdall} and provide the relation between this and minimum search depth. Several FRB samples can be `retro-fitted' using this to more properly account for survey completeness.