Chris Flynn - Finding the host galaxies of Fast Radio Bursts with UTMOST

Abstract: Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright, very short (few ms) bursts at radio wavelengths for which the progenitors are unknown. Thousands of FRBs occur daily on the sky to the sensitivity limit of the Parkes Radio Telescope, where they were first found. To date, no FRB has been seen at other than radio wavelengths. They almost certainly lie at cosmological distances, and allow us to probe the Intergalactic Medium in an entirely new way, and potentially measure the baryonic density of the Universe, quite apart from the exciting puzzle of what causes them.
I'll report on our FRB detections at the Molonglo Radio Telescope were we have developed a live detection capability commensally with a major pulsar timing program, allowing us to probe FRBs with very high time and frequency resolution. I'll report on results of a major effort at UTMOST (and at the Australian SKA Pathfinder), to localise FRBs to host galaxies, to characterise their source counts at a range of radio frequencies, their temporal and spectral properties, as major steps on the road to understanding their origins.