Radio Monitoring Observations of the Nearby Repeating Fast Radio Burst 20181030A

Thomas Abbott ( Université McGill )

20181030A is a nearby repeating fast radio burst (FRB), discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment's (CHIME) FRB Instrument in 2018 October. In the two years after the initial detection, 8 more bursts were detected using CHIME/FRB. The most likely host galaxy of FRB 20181030A is a star-forming spiral galaxy (NGC 3252), which resides at a distance of ~20 Mpc, likely making it the second closest repeating FRB source. FRB 20181030A is thus an excellent candidate for multiwavelength follow-up since it is likely located nearby. In this talk, I will present results from 10 months of daily radio monitoring observations of FRB 20181030A using the CHIME/Pulsar instrument, outfitted on the CHIME radio telescope. The CHIME/Pulsar instrument is able to record coherently dedispersed data at high time resolution using its tracking beam capabilities. Radio bursts, with narrow microsecond-wide components, have been detected in baseband data containing bursts from FRB 20181030A, suggesting that the source may produce coherent radio emission on timescales well below the ~1 ms time resolution of the CHIME/FRB instrument. I will present results characterizing the source’s recent emission behavior, activity level, and repetition rate. I will also describe the pipeline that is being used to perform a deep search for radio bursts and measure their properties.