A survey of the Galactic plane for dispersed radio pulses with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder

We report the results from a survey of the Galactic plane for dispersed single pulses using the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP). We searched for rare bright dispersed radio pulses comprising 160 pointings covering 4800 deg2 of the Galactic plane within |b| < 7°, each pointing with an exposure time of 10 h. We detected one fast radio burst, FRB 180430, and single pulses from 11 pulsars. No rotating radio transients were detected. We detected FRB 180430 in the Galactic plane in the anticentre direction with a fluence of 216 ± 5 Jy ms a dispersion measure (DM) of 264.1 pc cm−3. We estimate the extragalactic DM of the object to be less than 86.7 pc cm−3 depending on the electron density model. One model suggests that this FRB may be a giant pulse within our galaxy; we discuss how this may not correctly represent the line-of-sight DM. Based on the single detection of FRB 180430 in 3.47×104deg2h we derive an FRB event rate in the Galactic plane at the 20 Jy ms threshold to be in the range 2–140 per sky per day at 95 per cent confidence. Despite the necessarily large uncertainties from this single detection, this is consistent with the current ASKAP all-sky detection rate.