The Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS): Design, Commissioning, Data Release, and Detection of the first 5 Fast Radio Bursts
Creators: name: van Leeuwen, Joeri
name: Kooistra, Eric
name: Oostrum, Leon
name: Connor, Liam
name: Hargreaves, J. E.
name: Maan, Yogesh
name: Pastor-Marazuela, Inés
name: Petroff, Emily
name: van der Schuur, Daniel
name: Sclocco, Alessio
name: Straal, Samayra M.
name: Vohl, Dany
name: Wijnholds, Stefan J.
name: Adams, Elizabeth A. K.
name: Adebahr, Björn
name: Attema, Jisk
name: Bassa, Cees
name: Bast, Jeanette E.
name: Bilous, Anna
name: de Blok, W. J. G.
name: Boersma, Oliver M.
name: van Cappellen, Wim A.
name: Coolen, Arthur H. W. M.
name: Damstra, Sieds
name: Dénes, Helga
name: van Diepen, Ger N. J.
name: Gardenier, David W.
name: Grange, Yan G.
name: Gunst, André W.
name: Hess, Kelley M.
name: Holties, Hanno
name: van der Hulst, Thijs
name: Hut, Boudewijn
name: Kutkin, Alexander
name: Loose, G. Marcel
name: Lucero, Danielle M.
name: Mika, Ágnes
name: Mikhailov, Klim
name: Morganti, Raffaella
name: Moss, Vanessa A.
name: Mulder, Henk
name: Norden, Menno J.
name: Oosterloo, Tom A.
name: Orrú, Emaneula
name: Paragi, Zsolt
name: de Reijer, Jan-Pieter R.
name: Schoenmakers, Arno P.
name: Stuurwold, Klaas J. C.
name: ter Veen, Sander
name: Wang, Yu-Yang
name: Zanting, Alwin W.
name: Ziemke, Jacob
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Fast Radio Bursts must be powered by uniquely energetic emission mechanisms. This requirement has eliminated a number of possible source types, but several remain. Identifying the physical nature of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) emitters arguably requires good localisation of more detections, and broadband studies enabled by real-time alerting. We here present the Apertif Radio Transient System (ARTS), a supercomputing radio-telescope instrument that performs real-time FRB detection and localisation on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) interferometer. It reaches coherent-addition sensitivity over the entire field of the view of the primary dish beam. After commissioning results verified the system performed as planned, we initiated the Apertif FRB survey (ALERT). Over the first 5 weeks we observed at design sensitivity in 2019, we detected 5 new FRBs, and interferometrically localised each of these to 0.4--10 sq. arcmin. All detections are broad band and very narrow, of order 1 ms duration, and unscattered. Dispersion measures are generally high. Only through the very high time and frequency resolution of ARTS are these hard-to-find FRBs detected, producing an unbiased view of the intrinsic population properties. Most localisation regions are small enough to rule out the presence of associated persistent radio sources. Three FRBs cut through the halos of M31 and M33. We demonstrate that Apertif can localise one-off FRBs with an accuracy that maps magneto-ionic material along well-defined lines of sight. The rate of 1 every ~7 days next ensures a considerable number of new sources are detected for such study. The combination of detection rate and localisation accuracy exemplified by the 5 first ARTS FRBs thus marks a new phase in which a growing number of bursts can be used to probe our Universe.
description: Accepted version