Collaborative Research: The Definitive Follow-up Campaign for Fast Radio Bursts

快速射电暴（frb）是一种持续时间仅为几毫秒的瞬态射电脉冲。众所周知，它们来自我们自己以外的星系，现在是天体物理学研究的一个高度密集的领域，迄今为止已经探测到1000多个快速射电暴。加州大学圣克鲁兹分校、西北大学和玛丽亚·米切尔天文台（MMO）之间的一个研究团队构成了快速和幸运的快速射电暴后续（F4）团队的核心，该团队自2019年以来一直由美国国家科学基金会资助，旨在观察快速射电暴并将其与宿主星系联系起来。这使得研究小组能够开始使用快速射电暴信号来探测宇宙，并对宇宙中星系外高度扩散状态的重子（亚原子粒子，主要是质子和中子）进行新的普查。目前的NSF奖励扩展了这项工作，允许F4通过对精确定位的快速射电暴的两个新调查的后续观测，将其观测影响提高一个数量级，使他们能够研究宇宙学，重子分布和识别快速射电暴的祖先。该奖项还将支持在MMO举办的学士学位后“桥梁”项目中的学生，以吸引和留住有才华和传统上代表性不足的学生，其长期目标是提高他们在STEM领域的参与度和领导力。所有的调查人员都将参与MMO的许多外展活动。在这项拨款期间，F4团队将获取、分析和传播天空中数百个快速射电暴的宿主星系的深度、多波段成像和光谱。对于数十个快速射电暴场，他们将获得成像和多目标光谱来识别介入的星系晕和绘制前景大尺度结构。这些数据和衍生量（如红移(z)和恒星质量），以及对快速射电暴的测量（如色散测量（DM）和旋转测量（RM））将实现三大科学推进：(1)宇宙学：首次统计上可靠地确定麦克卡特关系（DM vs. z），从而对哈勃参数进行新的补充估计；(2)星系形成：推断星系晕中重子的径向分布，约束环星系介质的磁场和气体密度；(3)快速射电暴起源：测试用于产生快速射电暴的许多模型，并使用射电、光学和x射线波长的快速跟踪成像来解决快速射电暴的发射机制。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are transient pulses of radio emission lasting only milliseconds. They are known to be coming from galaxies outside our own and are now a highly intense area of astrophysical pursuit, with over a thousand FRBs detected to date. A research team between the University of California Santa Cruz, Northwestern University and the Maria Mitchell Observatory (MMO) forms the core of the Fast and Fortunate for FRB Follow-up (F4) team, which has been funded by the NSF since 2019 to observe FRBs and associate them with their host galaxies. This has enabled the team to start to use FRB signals to probe the universe and to make a new census of the baryons (subatomic particles, mostly protons and neutrons) in a highly diffuse state outside of galaxies throughout the universe. This current NSF award extends this work to allow F4 to increase its observational impact by an order of magnitude through follow-up observations of two new surveys of precisely localized FRBs, allowing them to study cosmology, baryon distribution and identify FRB progenitors. This award will also support students in a postbaccalaureate 'Bridge' program hosted at the MMO for attracting and retaining talented and traditionally underrepresented students, with a long-term goal of increasing their participation and leadership in STEM fields. All of the investigators will engage in the many outreach activities of the MMO.During the period of this grant, the F4 team will acquire, analyze, and disseminate deep, multi-band imaging and spectroscopy on the host galaxies of hundreds of FRBs across the sky. For many tens of FRB fields, they will obtain imaging and multi-object spectroscopy to identify intervening galactic halos and map the foreground large-scale structure. These data and derived quantities (e.g. redshifts (z) and stellar masses), together with measurements of the FRBs (e.g. dispersion measure (DM) and rotation measure (RM)) will enable three major scientific thrusts: (1) cosmology: the first statistically robust determination of the Macquart relation (DM vs. z), leading to a new and complementary estimate of the Hubble parameter; (2) galaxy formation: inferring the radial distribution of baryons in galactic halos and constraining the magnetic fields and gas density of the circumgalactic medium; and (3) FRB progenitors: testing the many models invoked to produce FRBs and using rapid follow-up imaging at radio, optical and X-ray wavelengths to resolve FRB emission mechanisms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.