Arecibo observations of a burst storm from FRB 20121102A in 2016

Understand

FRB 20121102A is the first known fast radio burst (FRB) from which repeat bursts were detected, and one of the best-studied FRB sources in the literature.

• Here we report on the analysis of 478 bursts (333 previously unreported) from FRB 20121102A using the 305-m Arecibo telescope - detected during approximately 59 hours of observations between December 2015 and October 2016.
• The majority of bursts are from a burst storm around September 2016.
• This is the earliest available sample of a large number of FRB 20121102A bursts, and it thus provides an anchor point for long-term studies of the source's evolving properties.