The Evryscope Fast Transient Engine: Real-time Detection for Rapidly Evolving Transients

Corbett, Hank; Carney, Jonathan; Gonzalez, Ramses; Fors, O.; Galliher, Nathan; Glazier, Amy; Howard, Ward S.; Law, Nicholas M.; Quimby, R.; Ratzloff, Jeffrey K.; Soto, Alan Vasquez

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/acbd41

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 121 publications

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“…High-probability candidates, as determined by the machine-learning-based vetting system, are passed directly to ArgusSpec. This system is described in detail in (Corbett et al 2022(Corbett et al , 2023. The core Argus-HDPS transientdetection algorithms have been validated in long-term and high-cadence use on the Evryscopes with EFTE.…”

Section: The Argusspec Targets: Detecting Flares and Othermentioning

confidence: 99%

The ArgusSpec Prototype: Autonomous Spectroscopic Follow-up of Flares Detected by Large Array Telescopes

Galliher,

Procter,

Law

et al. 2024

PASP

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ArgusSpec is a prototype autonomous spectroscopic follow-up instrument designed to characterize flares detected by the Argus Pathfinder telescope array by taking short exposure (30 s) broadband spectra (370–750 nm) at low resolutions (R ∼ 150 at 500 nm). The instrument is built from consumer off-the-shelf astronomical equipment, assembled inside a shipping container, and deployed alongside the Argus Pathfinder at a dark sky observing site in Western North Carolina. In this paper, we describe the hardware design, system electronics, custom control software suite, automated target acquisition procedure, and data reduction pipeline. We present initial on-sky test data used to evaluate system performance and show a series of spectra taken of a small flare from AD Leonis. The $35k prototype ArgusSpec was designed, built, and deployed in under a year, largely from existing parts, and has been operating on-sky since 2023 March. With current hardware and software, the system is capable of receiving an observation, slewing, performing autonomous slit acquisition, and beginning data acquisition within an average of 32 s. With Argus Pathfinder’s 1 s cadence survey reporting alerts of rising sources within 2 s of onset, ArgusSpec can reach new targets well within a minute of the start of the event. As built, ArgusSpec can observe targets down to a 20σ limiting magnitude of m V ≈ 13 at 30 s cadence with an optical resolution of R ∼ 150 (at 500 nm). With automated rapid acquisition demonstrated, later hardware upgrades will be based on a clean-sheet optical design, solving many issues in the current system, significantly improving the limiting magnitude, and potentially enabling deep spectroscopy by the coaddition of data from an array of ArgusSpec systems. The primary science driver behind ArgusSpec is the characterization of the blackbody evolution of flares from nearby M-dwarfs. Large flares emitted by these stars could have significant impacts on the potential habitability of any orbiting exoplanets, but our current understanding of these events is in large part built on observations from a handful of active stars. ArgusSpec will characterize large numbers of flares from across the night sky, building a spectroscopic library of the most extreme events from a wide variety of stellar masses and ages.

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Section: The Argusspec Targets: Detecting Flares and Othermentioning

confidence: 99%

The ArgusSpec Prototype: Autonomous Spectroscopic Follow-up of Flares Detected by Large Array Telescopes

Galliher,

Procter,

Law

et al. 2024

PASP

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Searching for gamma-ray emission from stellar flares

Song,

Paglione,

Ilin

2024

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Flares from magnetically active dwarf stars should produce relativistic particles capable of creating γ-rays. So far, the only isolated main sequence star besides the Sun to have been detected in γ-rays is TVLM 513-46546. Detecting γ-ray flares from more dwarf stars can improve our understanding of their magnetospheric properties, and could also indicate a diminished likelihood of their planets’ habitability. In this work, we stack data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope during a large number of events identified from optical and X-ray flare surveys. We report an upper limit of γ-ray emission from the population of flare stars. Stacking results towards control positions are consistent with a non-detection. We compare these results to observed Solar γ-ray flares and against a model of emission from neutral pion decay. The upper limit is consistent with Solar flares when scaled to the flare energies and distances of the target stars. As with Solar flares, the neutral pion decay mechanism for γ-ray production is also consistent with these results.

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Kilonova Seekers: the GOTO project for real-time citizen science in time-domain astrophysics

Killestein,

Kelsey,

Wickens

et al. 2024

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Time-domain astrophysics continues to grow rapidly, with the inception of new surveys drastically increasing data volumes. Democratised, distributed approaches to training sets for machine learning classifiers are crucial to make the most of this torrent of discovery – with citizen science approaches proving effective at meeting these requirements. In this paper, we describe the creation of and the initial results from the Kilonova Seekers citizen science project, built to find transient phenomena from the GOTO telescopes in near real-time. Kilonova Seekers launched in July 2023 and received over 600,000 classifications from approximately 2,000 volunteers over the course of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA O4a observing run. During this time, the project has yielded 20 discoveries, generated a ‘gold-standard’ training set of 17,682 detections for augmenting deep-learned classifiers, and measured the performance and biases of Zooniverse volunteers on real-bogus classification. This project will continue throughout the lifetime of GOTO, pushing candidates at ever-greater cadence, and directly facilitate the next-generation classification algorithms currently in development.

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The Evryscope Fast Transient Engine: Real-time Detection for Rapidly Evolving Transients

Cited by 3 publications

References 121 publications

The ArgusSpec Prototype: Autonomous Spectroscopic Follow-up of Flares Detected by Large Array Telescopes

The ArgusSpec Prototype: Autonomous Spectroscopic Follow-up of Flares Detected by Large Array Telescopes

Searching for gamma-ray emission from stellar flares

Kilonova Seekers: the GOTO project for real-time citizen science in time-domain astrophysics

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