The “fast radio burst” (FRB) is a new class of transient found in a variety of single-dish pulsar surveys \citep{2007Sci...318..777L,2011MNRAS.415.3065K,2013Sci...341...53T,2014arXiv1404.2934S}. FRBs are identified by their large dispersion measure (DM), which has been observed as high as 1100 pc cm\(^{-3}\), an order of magnitude larger than expected from the Galaxy. The simplest explanation for this large DM is that the bursts are dispersed by the intergalactic medium (IGM), implying that they originate at distances up to z\(\sim\)1.
If FRBs are cosmological, then they could be used to probe the intergalactic medium and study processes for their formation \citep[e.g., double neutron star mergers][]{2013PASJ...65L..12T}. However, terrestrial phenomena known as perytons have been discovered at the same telescopes finding FRBs \citep{2011ApJ...727...18B}. Perytons are impulsive radio transients with a width of tens of ms and an apparent DM of a few hundred, partially overlapping with characteristics expected of extragalactic radio transients. \citet{2014arXiv1402.4766K} suggest that perytons and FRBs are the same, terrestrial process seen in different optical regimes of the telescopes. It will be critical to distinguish these populations to be certain that FRBs are are astrophyiscal.
One way to understand their nature is to build statistical tests... Euclidean distribution... Rate constraint for future observing campaigns...
We are in the midst of a large survey with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to detect an FRB \citep[results in][]{law2014a}. The nondetection in that survey inspired us to reanalyze published rates in an attempt to make a reliable prediction for FRB rates for any given survey. Here, we present our estimate of the apparent flux distribution of FRBs to determine if they are consistent with an astrophysical population. We then use a Bayesian technique to estimate the FRB rate for a given telescope flux limit.