CHIME/Slow Overview and Pilot Survey: A New Backend to Search for Second-duration Radio Transients with the CHIME Telescope

Abstract We present an overview of CHIME/Slow, a real-time transient search backend under development to search for second-duration radio transients using the CHIME telescope, and results obtained from a pilot survey carried out using the prototype version of the search pipeline. The prototype CHIME/Slow pipeline was tested on archival data obtained in 2022 December, 2023 January, and 2023 February with a total on-sky time of 17 days with an instantaneous field of view of ∼13 deg 2 . In this pilot survey, we detected nine bursts, one from a new nonrepeating source, FRB 20230204C, and eight from the known hyperactive repeating source FRB 20220912A. Out of these nine bursts, two bursts from the repeater were not detected by CHIME/FRB, while the nonrepeater was detected in the side-lobe of a beam in CHIME/FRB, exhibiting shorter burst width and narrower bandwidth compared to the CHIME/Slow detection. Here we report properties of the bursts, discuss the sensitivity and completeness of the current version of the CHIME/Slow pipeline, and outline future development to improve its performance. Finally, based on these results, we report the all-sky rate (95% credible region) of radio transients with burst widths between 16 ms and 5 s, fluence above 5 Jy ms, and observing frequency of 600 MHz to be between 184 and 4556 bursts sky −1 day −1 .

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Publication Details

Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Published
2026-08-25
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae8847
Primary Topic
Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

CHIME/Slow Overview and Pilot Survey: A New Backend to Search for Second-duration Radio Transients with the CHIME Telescope

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The Astrophysical Journal
Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology
article

CHIME/Slow Overview and Pilot Survey: A New Backend to Search for Second-duration Radio Transients with the CHIME Telescope

Jeff Huang, Kevin Luke, Naman Jain, Arvind Balasubramanian, Yash Bhusare, Afrokk Khan, Kaitlyn Shin, Ziggy Pleunis, Sujay Mate, Paul Scholz, Mohit Bhardwaj, Victoria M. Kaspi, Charanjot Brar, Bradley W. Meyers, Jason Hessels, Nikola Milutinovic, B. M. Gaensler, Emmanuel Fonseca, Kenzie Nimmo, Ingrid Stairs, David Spear, Robert Main, Shriharsh P. Tendulkar, Ronniy C. Joseph, Fengqiu Adam Dong, Chia Min Tan
article en

Abstract

Abstract We present an overview of CHIME/Slow, a real-time transient search backend under development to search for second-duration radio transients using the CHIME telescope, and results obtained from a pilot survey carried out using the prototype version of the search pipeline. The prototype CHIME/Slow pipeline was tested on archival data obtained in 2022 December, 2023 January, and 2023 February with a total on-sky time of 17 days with an instantaneous field of view of ∼13 deg 2 . In this pilot survey, we detected nine bursts, one from a new nonrepeating source, FRB 20230204C, and eight from the known hyperactive repeating source FRB 20220912A. Out of these nine bursts, two bursts from the repeater were not detected by CHIME/FRB, while the nonrepeater was detected in the side-lobe of a beam in CHIME/FRB, exhibiting shorter burst width and narrower bandwidth compared to the CHIME/Slow detection. Here we report properties of the bursts, discuss the sensitivity and completeness of the current version of the CHIME/Slow pipeline, and outline future development to improve its performance. Finally, based on these results, we report the all-sky rate (95% credible region) of radio transients with burst widths between 16 ms and 5 s, fluence above 5 Jy ms, and observing frequency of 600 MHz to be between 184 and 4556 bursts sky −1 day −1 .

The Astrophysical JournalVol. 1008(1)
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (IN), Raman Research Institute (IN), West Virginia University (US), California Institute of Technology (US), Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (CA), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IN), University of British Columbia (CA), National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (IN), University of Toronto (CA), York University (CA), Curtin University (AU), National Radio Astronomy Observatory (US), University of California System (US), Sorbonne Université (FR), Laboratoire Médiations (FR), McGill University (CA), University of Amsterdam (NL), Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, McGill University, Space Telescope Science Institute, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Canada Foundation for Innovation, European Commission, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Canada Excellence Research Chairs, Government of Canada, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, University of Toronto, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology
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