A Synoptic View of Fast Radio Bursts with CHIME

<!--HTML--><p class="moz-quote-pre">For more than a decade enigmatic, extragalactic flashes called fast radio bursts (FRBs) have defied a definitive explanation for their origin. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is the only radio telescope capable of instantaneously observing hundreds of square degrees with the sensitivity of a 100-meter scale aperture. As a result, its transient search instrument, CHIME/FRB, has detected thousands of FRBs in its first few years of operations, increasing the known sample by an order of magnitude. I will show how CHIME's novel, digitally-driven design coupled with the availability of mass-produced analogue and digital hardware has enabled this leap in telescope capabilities. I will then give an overview of CHIME/FRB's most recent results, where observations of particular sources and statistical analyses of the FRB population are starting to reveal the nature of this mysterious phenomenon. I will conclude by describing efforts to augment CHIME's capabilities by adding Outrigger telescopes, which will be located across North America and will precisely localize FRB sources using very long baseline interferometry. The resulting large sample of localized FRBs will provide a new probe of the large-scale distribution of baryons in the Universe.</p> Cosmo Coffee: https://cern.zoom.us/j/66371577801?pwd=TjMvLzlFZTY2QXlQMTBmWkcxVm9TUT09