This project will deliver a unique radio telescope, the Bustling Universe Radio Survey
Telescope in Taiwan (BURSTT), and support several world-first science
breakthroughs using this powerful new instrument.
Until recently, astronomers did not know that extragalactic millisecond-duration radio
bursts—or fast radio bursts (FRBs)—are happening thousands of times each day.
Despite having more than 50 theoretical models proposed, the nature of FRB remains
unknown.
The physical origin of FRBs has become one of the most urgent questions
in astronomy and physics. Why does the origin of FRBs remain unknown?
Three major challenges have hampered the progress:
The angular resolution of existing radio telescopes is poor, which makes it difficult to identify the accurate positions of FRBs;
Existing radio telescopes are not tailored for FRBs, which results in most detected events being distant and faint and thereby difficult to detect in other wavelengths, which is critical for constructing physical models;
The field-of-view (FoV) of existing telescopes is small and cannot distinguish repeated versus single-burst events with a distinct origin.
Figure 1: Artist’s interpretation of fast radio bursts, mysterious, millisecond flashes of radio light of unknown origin from far outside the Milky Way. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar/artsource.nl
Figure 2. Many explanations have been posited to explain the origin of FRBs
We propose to solve all three challenges by building the world’s first telescope
dedicated to FRBs, the Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan
(BURSTT), whose fisheye field-of-view will make its instantaneous exposure area 25
times greater than today’s best telescopes. At the same time, BURSTT is an
interferometer with baselines of 100s km, allowing us to accurately locate the position
of the FRBs to their host galaxies. This interferometer with a massive window to the
sky will immediately solve challenges (1) and (2), allowing BURSTT to discover a
large sample of bright FRBs with localization, and specifically those located close to
Earth. FRBs detected by BURSTT will typically be ~3 times closer than those
detected by today’s best telescope. Collecting a large sample of nearby FRBs with
accurate positions is essential for allowing multi-wavelength detections. The question
of FRBs’ origin will only be settled once we compare multi-wavelength and multi-messenger counterparts.
Through its wide FoV, BURSTT will be by far the best
positioned instrument to find multi-messenger counterparts through gravitational
waves, neutrinos, cosmic rays, and high energy photons. Multiwavelength follow-up
will require optical, X-ray and gamma-ray instruments. While in general they cannot
peer deep into the Universe, these instruments can thoroughly investigate regions
nearer to Earth.
BURSTT’s large FoV also provides us with a high-cadence, i.e., repeating FRBs can
be precisely known. The capability of distinguishing repeated versus single-burst
events is critical, because their physical origins are likely different. The immediate
scientific goals of this project are to
complete a census of nearby repeating andnon-repeating FRBs,
identify FRB multi-wavelength counterparts,
determine the origin of a sufficient number of FRBs to allow the first generalization about their nature.
In the long run, our investigations will allow us to launch even more ambitious science, such as using FRBs as a cosmic probe to constrain theories of dark energy.
BURSTT’s sample of thousands of FRBs will be unprecedented, with accurate
localization and high cadence. By building the first FRB telescope, Taiwan will
become a world leader of FRB science.
Participants of the inaugural Taiwan FRB Face-to-Face Workshop discussed the science and technology of BURSTT.
asiaa.sinica.edu.tw
