The Northern Cross fast radio burst project - I. Overview and pilot observations at 408 MHz

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) remain one of the most enigmatic astrophysical sources. Observations have significantly progressed over the last few years, due to the capabilities of new radio telescopes and the refurbishment of existing ones. Here, we describe the upgrade of the Northern Cross radio telescope, operating in the 400-416 MHz frequency band, with the ultimate goal of turning the array into a dedicated instrument to survey the sky for FRBs. We present test observations of the pulsar B0329+54 to characterize the system performance and forecast detectability. Observations with the system currently in place are still limited by modest sky coverage (similar to 9.4 deg(2)) and biased by smearing of high dispersion measure events within each frequency channels. In its final, upgraded configuration, however, the telescope will be able to carry out unbiased FRB surveys over a similar to 350 deg (2) instantaneous field of view up to z similar to 5, with a (nearly constant) similar to 760 (tau/ms)(-0.5) mJy rms sensitivity.