Oral Presentation

Investigating Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) environment for a new BURSTT outrigger Station at Ogasawara Island

Author(s): Hiroto Masaoka

Presenter: Hiroto Masaoka (Mizusawa VLBI Observatory, University of Tokyo & National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/NAOJ)

Fast Radio Burst (FRB) is an incredibly powerful radio burst with an extremely short duration of milliseconds. Despite the successful localization of approximately 30 FRBs, the sources and mechanisms of FRBs remain elusive due to the limited samples. We aim to localize ~100 FRBs per year with an angular resolution of sub-arcseconds using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations with a baseline of 2000km between the BURSTT stations in Taiwan and a new outrigger station in Ogasawara Island, Japan. This BURSTT international collaboration with such a long baseline will provide a tenfold improvement in angular resolution, crucial for precise FRB localization. With such superb localization accuracy, we will be able to identify not only the FRB host galaxy, but also the FRB’s position within the galaxy. This will be a breakthrough in elucidating the FRB progenitors and the environment surrounding them. In January - February 2024, we investigated the Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) environment of Ogasawara Island, Japan. The results were promising, with a remarkably quiet RFI environment between 350-800MHz. In this wide frequency range, we successfully detected the solar fringes at two candidate sites. These results demonstrate that Ogasawara Island is a suitable location for the BURSTT outrigger station.