Long-Integration Magnetar Burst Observatory (LIMBO): Instrument Summary and Early FRB Rate Constraints

TL;DR

LIMBO is a real-time radio observatory designed to detect fast radio bursts from Galactic magnetars, demonstrating effective continuous monitoring and providing initial constraints on FRB event rates from SGR 1935+2154.

Contribution

This paper introduces LIMBO, a novel real-time radio detection pipeline for Galactic FRBs, and presents early rate constraints based on observations of SGR 1935+2154.

Findings

LIMBO is sensitive to transients with fluences ≥ 43 Jy·ms.

Detected 12 candidate FRBs from SGR 1935+2154 in 833 hours.

Estimated FRB event rates and fluence distribution slope.

Abstract

The Long-Integration Magnetar Burst Observatory (LIMBO) is a real-time radio transient detection pipeline designed to search for dispersed fast radio bursts (FRBs) from Galactic magnetars. Deployed at the University of California, Berkeley's Leuschner Radio Observatory, LIMBO employs a $4.3~\mathrm{m}$ dish with a dual-polarization feed to continuously monitor a $250~\mathrm{MHz}$ band centred at $1475~\mathrm{MHz}$. A real-time processing pipeline performs a search for dispersed transients on the summed polarizations, with detections triggering dumps of buffered voltage data to disk. Based on calibrated sensitivity measurements, synthetic signal-injection and recovery tests, and successful detection of pulses from the Crab Pulsar, we determine that LIMBO is sensitive to radio transients with fluences $\geq 43~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}$. Between May and August 2023, LIMBO conducted 833 hours of follow-up observations of the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, yielding 12 candidate FRB detections. If these events are true, we measure FRB-like event rates from SGR 1935+2154 of $R(\geq 65~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}) = 112.3^{+81.3}_{-54.5}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ and $R(\geq 130~\mathrm{Jy \cdot ms}) = 17.7^{+40.8}_{-15.1}~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. Combining these results with previously reported FRBs from SGR 1935+2154, we infer a cumulative rate-fluence power-law slope of $\alpha=-0.60^{+0.24}_{-0.28}$ in the fluence range between $10$ and $10^6\rm\, Jy \cdot ms$. These observations demonstrate the capability of continuous, real-time monitoring of Galactic magnetars and establish LIMBO as an effective instrument for detecting Galactic FRBs.