Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are now nearly a decade old…
What are they? How can we use them?
We have pioneered a series of technical developments that have opened access to fast radio transients at the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). While large, single-dish telescopes have pioneered the field, interferometers will transform it through their ability to precisely localize, efficiently survey, and fully characterize sources. While the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope and VLA have comparable sensitivities, the VLA
surveys 16 times more sky and localizes sources 10 to 300 times more precisely.
This ”fast imaging” observing mode has been applied to observations of FRBs, pulsars and rotating radio transients \cite{2015ApJ...807...16L} \cite{2012ApJ...760..124L}.
We are working with the NRAO to develop a real-time, commensal fast imaging transient search system at the VLA. A real-time transient search not only rapidly identifies transients, but it makes it possible to trigger data recording for those brief moments when a candidate transient appears. Triggered data recording reduces the data flow dramatically and opens access to even higher data rate observing and makes commensal observing possible. Thus, we will use this system to turn every VLA observation into a portion of a massive transient survey.
