2023 #4

Galaxy Number Densities around Fast Radio Bursts

Tetsuya Hashimoto (National Chung Hsing University)


Description:
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious radio flashes with millisecond timescales. Understanding the galaxy type of FRB host galaxies provides us with important hints of their origins because old (young) FRB progenitors would be more likely hosted by old (young) galaxies. However, the poor positional accuracy of FRB telescopes such as CHIME has hampered identifying FRB host galaxies. To overcome this problem, we propose a new method to investigate the number densities of galaxies around FRBs. The galaxy number density is well known to correlate with galaxy types, allowing us to constrain galaxy types of FRB hosts without suffering from the problem of poor positional accuracy. The summer student will investigate the galaxy types of FRB host galaxies with our new method to constrain the origin of FRBs. Following successful cases of past summer school students, we plan to publish a paper based on this project. The supervisor will provide the student with a working desk in his office to maximize the research efficiency.

Required Background:
Unix/Linux experience and programming languages such as Python are recommended, although learning them is a part of the summer student program.