A southern sky search for repeating fast radio bursts using the Australian SKA Pathfinder

We have conducted a search for bright repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) in our nearby Universe with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in single-dish mode. We used eight ASKAP 12 m dishes, each equipped with a Chequerboard Phased Array Feed forming 36 beams on the sky, to survey ∼30 000 deg2 of the southern sky (−90° < δ < +30°) in 158 antenna days. The fluence limit of the survey is 22 Jy ms. We report the detection of FRB 180515 in our survey. We found no repeating FRBs in a total mean observation of 3 h per pointing divided into 1 h intervals, which were separated in time ranging between a day to a month. Using our non-detection, we exclude the presence of a repeating FRB similar to FRB 121102 closer than z = 0.004 in the survey area – a volume of at least 9.4 × 104 Mpc3 – at 95 per cent confidence.