The observed properties of Fast Radio Bursts

Understand

I present an empirical study of the properties of fast radio bursts (FRBs): Gigahertz-frequency, dispersed pulses of extragalactic origin.

• I focus my investigation on the sample of seventeen FRBs detected at the Parkes radio telescope with largely self-consistent instrumentation.
• Of this sample, six are temporally unresolved, eight exhibit evidence for scattering in inhomogeneous plasma, and five display potentially intrinsic temporal structure.
• The characteristic scattering timescales at a frequency of 1 GHz range between 0.005 ms and 32 ms; moderate evidence exists for a relation between FRB scattering timescales and dispersion measures.