CRAFT
The Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients Survey
Principal investigators
- Dr Keith Bannister (CASS)
- Associate Professor Ryan Shannon (Swinburne)
- Dr Clancy James (ICRAR-Curtin)
CRAFT is the high-time resolution survey for fast radio transients on the 36-element, 30 deg2 field of view Australian SKA Pathfinder. Its aim is to survey the Universe for impulsive astrophysical phenomena at radio frequencies between about 700 and 1500 MHz. A particular target of interest is the newly-discovered class of highly-luminous Fast Radio Bursts. The cause of FRB emission is a topic of hot debate, as are their progenitor objects. FRBs occur at cosmological distances , and their radiation, which is subject to dispersion by the tenuous matter in the ionized Inter-Galactic Medium, hold the potential to probe the structure, physical properties and evolution of the IGM in a manner that has not previously been possible.
ASKAP undertaking CRAFT observations in Fly’s Eye mode. Image credit: Rob Hollow (CASS)
Technical specifications
- 1 ms time resolution
- 1 MHz spectral resolution across 336 MHz
- Total powers are searched from each of the phased array feed (PAF) beams from each telescope. The telescopes can be operated in either fly’s eye mode (to achieve a total field of view of N x 30 sq.deg. with N antennas), or a collimated incoherent mode in which all antennas target a common pointing centre
- Buffers within the PAF beamformers implement a voltage capture mode for all bursts detected in real time. This feeds the interferometric localisation pipeline.
CRAFT ATels
Useful related papers about the survey
- Macquart et al., The Commensal Real-Time ASKAP Fast-Transients (CRAFT) Survey, PASA, 2010, 27, 272-282
- Bannister et al. 2017, The Detection of an Extremely Bright Fast Radio Burst in a Phased Array Feed Survey, ApJ Lett, 841, L12
Recent CRAFT results
- Cho et al. 2020, Spectropolarimetric Analysis of FRB 181112 at Microsecond Resolution: Implications for Fast Radio Burst Emission Mechanism, ApJ Lett, 891, L31
- Kumar et al. 2019, Faint Repetitions from a Bright Fast Radio Burst Source, ApJ Lett, 887, L30
- Prochaska et al. 2019, The low density and magnetization of a massive galaxy halo exposed by a fast radio burst, Science, 366, 231
- Bannister et al. 2019, A single fast radio burst localized to a massive galaxy at cosmological distance, Science, 365, 565
- Shannon et al. 2018, The dispersion-brightness relation for fast radio bursts from a wide-field survey, Nature, 562, 386
- Sokolowski et al. 2018, No Low-frequency Emission from Extremely Bright Fast Radio Bursts, ApJ Lett, 867, L12
- Mahony et al. 2018, A Search for the Host Galaxy of FRB 171020, ApJ Lett, 867, L10
- James et al. 2019, The Performance and Calibration of the CRAFT Fly’s Eye Fast Radio Burst Survey, PASA, 36, 9
- James et al. 2019, The Slope of the Source-Count Distribution for Fast Radio Bursts, MNRAS, 483, 1342
- Macquart et al. 2019, The spectral properties of the bright fast radio burst population, ApJ Lett, 872, L19
- Bhandari et al. 2019, A southern sky search for repeating fast radio bursts using the Australian SKA Pathfinder, MNRAS, 486, 70
- Qiu et al. 2019, A survey of the Galactic plane for dispersed radio pulses with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, MNRAS, 486, 166
- James 2019, Limits on the population of repeating fast radio bursts from the ASKAP/CRAFT lat50 survey, MNRAS, 486, 5934
CRAFT-related or incorporated CRAFT data
- Bannister 2018, Australia’s game-changing fast radio burst hunter, Nature Astronomy, 2, 922
- Macquart 2018, Probing the Universe’s baryons with fast radio bursts, Nature Astronomy, 2 836
- Farah et al. 2018, FRB microstructure revealed by the real-time detection of FRB170827, MNRAS, 478, 1209
- Abbott et al. 2017, Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger, ApJ Lett, 848, L12
- For enquiries about CRAFT contact either Keith Bannister or Jean-Pierre Macquart or Ryan Shannon
Number of CRAFT FRBs detected to date: 35