Prof. Liam Connor (Harvard University)

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have held promise as a new probe of extragalactic astronomy ever since their serendipitous discovery in 2007. FRBs are brief, bright, and ubiquitous, with large volumetric rates. Each pulse carries with it information about the ionized plasma through which it travelled, allowing us to directly measure the lion’s share of baryons in the Universe. These baryons are ionized and diffuse, making them difficult to detect by other means. I will present early results on the distribution of cosmological baryons based on a growing sample of FRBs localized to their host galaxies. I will then describe two upcoming radio telescopes that will help us achieve these goals: the Coherent All-Sky Monitor (CASM) and the Deep Synoptic Array (DSA).