Speaker
Description
Fast Radio Bursts are extragalactic radio sources of 10s of microsecond to 10s millisecond durations. Thousands appear to occur daily to the sensitivity limit of the Parkes radio telescope, the facility that discovered them in 2007. After a decade of searching, the number of known FRBs is approaching 100 events, with their origins remaining obscure. Parkes has been joined in the hunt for FRBs by other facilities in Australia -- in particular Molonglo and ASKAP, and elsewhere -- eg MeerKat (South Africa), CHIME (Canada), DSA, Arecibo and GBT (USA), Westerbork/LOFAR (Netherlands), Effelsberg (Germany). Spectacular progress has been made in the last 3 months, with efforts to localise
FRBs to host galaxies maturing rapidly, and sensitive wide area facilities yielding much higher discovery rates of FRBs. I will review the state of FRB search and characterisation programs at all ongoing and planned facilities, with a focus on the host galaxy localisation efforts at ASKAP and Molonglo.
