Center for Astrophysics Research and Technologies Seminar Series
Exploring the transient sky: from surveys to simulations
Presented by Dario Carbone, UA
The transient sky is very important to study the dynamics of the Universe on human timescales. Transient sources are seen in every band of the electromagnetic spectrum, from low radio frequencies to gamma-ray energies, and produced by nearby flare stars to cosmological gamma-ray bursts.
We have performed a transient survey of four different fields with the LOw Frequency Array (LOFAR) at 150 MHz. LOFAR is a new generation radio interferometer which is observing at very low radio frequencies, a so far relatively unexplored frequency domain for transient searches. No credible transients were detected in our survey, but we were able to set stringent upper limits on the transient surface density using three new statistical methods. We also calculated the transient surface density as a function of the timescale of the transients, and established that the upper limits we can set vary up to two orders of magnitude for different timescales.
We have explored the complex relation between flux density, timescale and transient surface density, and developed a simulation method to calculate the transient rate as a function of both the flux and the duration of transients for different shapes of their lightcurves and for a given observing strategy. This method is independent of the nature of transient sources, and the instrument or the frequency of the observations. Therefore, this provides a tool for transient surveys carried out by current and future observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum.
2:00 pm, Thursday, January 21, 2016
PAIS-2540, PAIS
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