Open AccessA search for optical bursts from the rotating radio transient J1819−1458 with ULTRACAM
Author(s) -
Dhillon V. S.,
Marsh T. R.,
Littlefair S. P.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10827.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , telescope , flux (metallurgy) , astronomy , optical telescope , wavelength , transient (computer programming) , radio telescope , optics , materials science , computer science , metallurgy , operating system
We report on the search for optical bursts from J1819−1458, a member of the recently discovered rotating radio transients (RRATs). J1819−1458 exhibits 3‐ms bursts with a peak flux of f 1.4 GHz ν = 3.6 Jy every ∼3.4 min, implying that it is visible for only ∼1 s per day at radio wavelengths. Assuming that the optical light behaves in a similar manner, the most‐sensitive way of detecting RRATs is hence not to take long exposures of the field, but instead to capture individual bursts using a high‐speed camera mounted on a large‐aperture telescope. Using ULTRACAM on the 4.2‐m William Herschel Telescope (WHT), we obtained 97 100 images of the field of J1819−1458, each of 18.1 ms exposure time and with essentially no dead‐time between the frames. We find no evidence for bursts in u ′, g ′ and i ′ at magnitudes brighter than 15.1, 17.4 and 16.6 (5σ), corresponding to fluxes of less than 3.3, 0.4 and 0.8 mJy at 3560, 4820 and 7610 Å, respectively.