Parkes observations for project P1404 semester 2026APRS_05

Full description

MeerKAT has discovered a number of Galactic transients, which are most likely to be Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) and previous observations of a few of these sources with the Murriyang UWL receiver have detected regular periodic signals and proven its utility in follow-up observations of MeerKAT discoveries.
Recently, MeerKAT has discovered some more interesting transients likely to be RRATs and high quality UWL follow-up observations of these sources are required to determine the rotational period and also to study their emission properties. Detecting a period and showing that we can get regular detections with the UWL would allow us to undertake future observations to get the period derivative which would enable more detailed studies of the population in comparison to the larger population of radio pulsars. The very wide bandwidth of the UWL will not only enable detections of these sources but will also allow us to look at frequency dependent properties such as the spectral index, pulse shape variations and polarisation. Given the potential link between RRATs, magnetars, and some fast radio bursts (FRBs) suggested by both observations and theories, this study could reveal more similarities between these different classes of transient sources and significantly advance our understanding of their origins.