Petroff, E.Burke-Spolaor, Sarah G.Keane, E. F.McLaughlin, M. A.Miller, RAndreoni, I.Bailes, MatthewBarr, E. D.Bernard, S. R.Bhandari, S.Caleb, Manisha2020-01-132020-01-130035-8711http://hdl.handle.net/1885/197076We report on the discovery of a new fast radio burst (FRB), FRB 150215, with the Parkes radio telescope on 2015 February 15. The burst was detected in real time with a dispersion measure (DM) of 1105.6 ± 0.8 pc cm−3, a pulse duration of 2.8+1.2−0.5 ms, and a measured peak flux density assuming that the burst was at beam centre of 0.7+0.2−0.1 Jy. The FRB originated at a Galactic longitude and latitude of 24.66°, 5.28° and 25° away from the Galactic Center. The burst was found to be 43 ± 5 per cent linearly polarized with a rotation measure (RM) in the range −9 < RM < 12 rad m−2 (95 per cent confidence level), consistent with zero. The burst was followed up with 11 telescopes to search for radio, optical, X-ray, γ-ray and neutrino emission. Neither transient nor variable emission was found to be associated with the burst and no repeat pulses have been observed in 17.25 h of observing. The sightline to the burst is close to the Galactic plane and the observed physical properties of FRB 150215 demonstrate the existence of sight lines of anomalously low RM for a given electron column density. The Galactic RM foreground may approach a null value due to magnetic field reversals along the line of sight, a decreased total electron column density from the Milky Way, or some combination of these effects. A lower Galactic DM contribution might explain why this burst was detectable whereas previous searches at low latitude have had lower detection rates than those out of the plane.Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020 and the ARC Laureate Fellowship project FL150100148. Funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 617199 (EP). MAM and RM are supported by NSF award #1211701. The ANTARES authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l energie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Labex OCEVU (ANR-11-LABX-0060) and the A*MIDEX project (ANR11-IDEX-0001-02), Region Ile-de-France (DIM-ACAV), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania; Ministerio de Economıa y Competitividad (MINECO): Plan Estatal de Investigacion (refs. FPA2015-65150-C3-1-P, -2-P and -3-P, MINECO/FEDER)), Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence and MultiDark Consolider (MINECO), and Prometeo and Grisol´ıa programs (Generalitat Valenciana), Spain; Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Professional Training, Morocco. Chaves was funded by EU FP7 Marie Curie, grant agreement No. PIEF-GA-2012-332350.application/pdfen-AU© 2017 The Authorspolarizationmethods: data analysissurveysISM: structure2017-05-0910.1093/mnras/stx10982019-08-25