Unsupervised Exploration of Fast Radio Bursts Dynamic Spectra


IFPU
11- 15 March 2024


Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright transient radio flashes, mostly extra-galactic, ranging from a fraction of a millisecond to a few seconds long. While over 600 events have been detected to date, the astrophysical process(es) that cause them, and their counterpart sources, are not well understood. FRBs have been divided into two simple types: repeating and non-repeating ones. However, the intrinsic variability across wavelengths of those events, and the characteristics of the population distribution in this space, remain largely unexplored. Detecting different types of FRBs in the dynamic spectra space could indicate different sources of FRBs. This is a non trivial task due to the high-dimensionality of the dynamic spectra. We propose to investigate cutting-edge dimensionality reduction methods combined with novel density-peak clustering algorithms to target this problem. We will calibrate our investigation on a suite of simulation data, before moving to real data from e.g. Chime, with the aim of bringing about new insights into the physics and characteristics of these objects.

Organisers:

  • Gabriella Contardo  (SISSA, Trieste)
  • Roberto Trotta  (SISSA, Trieste)

Participants:

  • Jason Hessels (University of Amsterdam)
  • Daniela Huppenkothen (SRON)
  • Dirk Kuiper (University of Amsterdam)
  • Gabriella Contardo  (SISSA, Trieste)
  • Roberto Trotta  (SISSA, Trieste)