A search for optical bursts from RRAT J1819-1458: II. Simultaneous ULTRACAM-Lovell Telescope observations

Abstract

The Rotating RAdio Transient (RRAT) J1819-1458 exhibits ~3 ms bursts in the radio every ~3 min, implying that it is visible for only ~1 per day. Assuming that the optical light behaves in a similar manner, long exposures of the field would be relatively insensitive due to the accumulation of sky photons. A much better way of detecting optical emission from J1819-1458 would then be to observe with a high-speed optical camera simultaneously with radio observations, and co-add only those optical frames coincident with the dispersion-corrected radio bursts. We present the results of such a search, using simultaneous ULTRACAM and Lovell Telescope observations. We find no evidence for optical bursts in J1819-1458 at magnitudes brighter than i'=19.3 (5-sigma limit). This is nearly 3 magnitudes fainter than the previous burst limit, which had no simultaneous radio observations.

6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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• A Long-term study of three rotating radio transients
• The extended X-ray emission around RRAT J1819-1458
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• Flickers, Bursts, and Dips: Detecting Rapid Variability with the g(2) Autocorrelation Function