Colloquium: Searching for fast radio bursts with MeerKAT

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Fast radio bursts (FRBs) have a story which has been told and retold many times over the past few years as they have sparked excitement and controversy since the pioneering discovery in 2007. The intriguing combination of cosmological distances, along with their estimated high radio luminosities and correspondingly large brightness temperatures is perhaps what makes FRBs most tantalising.

Many major radio telescopes around the world are currently undertaking large-area surveys and targeted searches at radio frequencies ranging from 100 MHz up to tens of GHz to discover, study and understand the origins of these bursts. MeeTRAP is one such project at the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.

In my talk, I will present a brief overview of the science highlights in the field of FRBs and the recent results of the discoveries from the MeerTRAP project.