Parkes observations for project P1068 semester 2021APRS_03

Brief description

In the fast-moving world of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), the critical question of what fraction of FRBs emit repeat bursts remains unanswered. Of order 20 repeating FRBs are now known, and their spectro-temporal properties hint at differences with apparently non-repeating bursts - the poor statistics preclude a definitive diagnosis. FRB 180301 is a promising source for further study for multiple reasons: it is an active repeater similar to the FRB 121102 and the most active FRB source visible to Parkes, and it shows diverse polarization properties across the repeat bursts. We have detected multiple repeat bursts from this source in our campaign last semester. The signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of these detections are not sufficiently significant to measure their spectro-polarimetric properties. We request Parkes observations with the UWL receiver to continue the monitoring of this FRB source in order to characterize the broadband emission properties. Some of the key goals for these future observations are: to constrain the repetition rate, identify any variation of pulse characteristics over time, measure the polarimetric properties and provide insight into the emission mechanisms. The diverse polarization angle swings in the FAST detections and significant circular polarization in the original Parkes detection indicate the progenitor is embedded in an extreme magneto-ionic environment with complex field structure that has not been seen before. Understanding these diverse polarization properties from this source could be the key to distinguish repeater sources from the apparent non-repeaters ones.