A search for rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts in the Parkes high-latitude pulsar survey

Abstract

Discoveries of rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts (FRBs) in pulsar surveys suggest that more of such transient sources await discovery in archival data sets. Here we report on a single-pulse search for dispersed radio bursts over a wide range of Galactic latitudes (|b| < 60°) in data previously searched for periodic sources by Burgay et al. We re-detected 20 of the 42 pulsars reported by Burgay et al. and one rotating radio transient reported by Burke-Spolaor. No FRBs were discovered in this survey. Taking into account this result, and other recent surveys at Parkes, we corrected for detection sensitivities based on the search software used in the analyses and the different back-ends used in these surveys and find that the all-sky FRB event rate for sources with a fluence above 4.0 Jy ms at 1.4 GHz to be R = 4.4-3.1+5.2 × 103 FRBs d-1 sky-1, where the uncertainties represent a 99 per cent confidence interval. While this rate is lower than inferred from previous studies, as we demonstrate, this combined event rate is consistent with the results of all systematic FRB searches at Parkes to date and does not require the need to postulate a dearth of FRBs at intermediate latitudes.