Fast Radio Bursts

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are rapid and bright radio transients that appear to come from extragalactic origins. The nature of FRBs is still a mystery. The leading theories suggest that FRBs come from incredibly volatile cosmic events, such as material being ejected from supermassive black holes, the explosions of superluminous supernovae, or rotating young magnetars.

I worked as an undergraduate researcher in the team led by Prof. Victoria Kaspi at McGill Space Institute (MSI) to search for FRBs using the CHIME telescope. The CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) telescope, whose primary goal is to map the red-shifted 21 cm hydrogen in order to study Baryon Acoustic Oscillations at redshifts of 0.8-2.5, has a huge field of view that also makes it an ideal instrument to search for FRBs. The FRB search using CHIME has been in operation since 2018.

Below are the slides of my talk, aimed at the general audience, on the FRB and CHIME for the MSI and Trottier Fellows Research Showcase in July 2017. My work contributes to our paper The CHIME Fast Radio Burst Project: System Overview.

Below are my poster presentation and research report.