Matthew Lundy | Fast Radio Bursts: Uncovering the origin and use of a mysterious millisecond radio transient

Friday 13 Sept 2024, 10:30 → 12:00 Europe/Berlin

SR 05 (Villa)

For just over the last decade, we have been studying a class of mysterious radio transients known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). FRBs are rapid millisecond bursts of radio waves coming from some class of unknown progenitors outside of the galaxy. Even with the recent developments in instrumentation leading to the measurement of many more FRBs, their origins are still unknown. Searching for multiwavelength counterparts remains critical in understanding the underlying emission mechanisms in these sources. This talk will summarize some of the ongoing efforts by many groups to find potential counterparts, and will describe both the phenomenology and history of FRBs. It will also focus on some new results from simultaneous optical and gamma-ray observations of multiple FRBs with the VERITAS observatory. These will be compared to previously under probed emission models including maser emission and magnetospheric models. We will also briefly discuss the role that imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes play in studying rapid transients, and give some predictions for future detectors.