Detection of a Low Frequency Cosmic Radio Transient using Two LWA Stations
Abstract
In the past few decades, most of the blind transient searches of the radio sky were focused at frequencies above 300 MHz and the transient sky below 100 MHz remains poorly explored. We monitor the transient sky below 100 MHz using the two stations of Long Wavelength Array, LWA1 and LWA-SV. The first station, LWA1 discovered meteor radio afterglows which is a new form of atmospheric transient. With an average detection of 60 MRAs per year, it is difficult to differentiate between atmospheric and cosmic transients with a single station. The recent commissioning of the new LWA station in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (LWA-SV) allows application of anti-coincidence detection of cosmic transients. The two stations are separated by 70 km which is sufficient to differentiate the foreground transient events like lightning, MRAs, RFI and near orbit satellites from cosmic events. We report the detection of a potential cosmic transient candidate in the study of 2 year all-sky images from both LWA stations. The transient was detected on 18 October 2017 08:47 UTC near the celestial equator. The detected transient at 34 MHz has a duration of 15 - 20 seconds and a flux density of 842±116 Jy at LWA1 and 830±92 Jy at LWA-SV.
- Publication:
-
The 34th Annual New Mexico Symposium
- Pub Date:
- November 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018anms.conf....5V