Hallinan - Transients (abstract)

Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:38:29 -0500
Reply-To: kunal@astro.caltech.edu
To: VLA Sky Survey Workshop <vlass@nrao.edu>

Your white paper has been submitted.

Contact Author
Gregg Hallinan

Contact Author Institution
California Institute of Technology

White Paper Title
Transient Science with the VLASS

We discuss the potential science return through detection of
transients in the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS). The VLASS will potentially
probe known classes of Galactic (active stars, brown dwarfs, X-ray
binaries, novae, magnetars) and extragalactic (SNe, GRBs, TDEs, AGN)
radio transients and likely reveal new populations. We consider the
return from a large two-epoch 30,000\,deg$^2$ survey and a
multi-epoch, multi-frequency, medium-area 1,000\,deg$^2$ of the
Galactic Gap and Galactic Plane. In all cases, a successful transient
program will require near real-time data reduction, source extraction
and transient identification pipelines to allow timely follow up at
radio, optical and higher energy bands. Accompanying VLA and VLBA
programs should be coordinated with the VLASS to allow rapid follow-up
of detected transients.

(combined with second white paper by K. Mooley)

The Dynamic Radio Sky: An Opportunity for the Discovery of Galactic Transients

Recently, the detection of periodic pulses from brown dwarfs, giant
flares from soft gamma-ray repeaters, and the enigmatic Galactic
Center Radio Transients have highlighted Galactic radio transient
search as having a great potential for discovery. This opportunity
can be fully exploited with a multi-epoch sensitive survey in the
Galactic plane, currently achievable only with the Karl G. Jansky
array. Such a survey is further motivated by the statistical study of
Galactic systems known to exhibit transient phenomena (e.g. active
binaries, cataclysmic variables, X-ray binaries and young stellar
objects), but poorly understood in the radio. A 1000 sq. deg survey
with logarithmic sampling on timescales between minutes to weeks will
be useful for systematically exploring the phase space of Galactic
radio transients and studying transient radio emission induced by
accretion, outflows, and magnetic fields in Galactic objects. Archival
data and future proposed radio surveys will be! useful in probing
transient phenomena on longer timescales. Such a survey in the crowded
Galactic plane will benefit from observations in the A-configuration
for maximum resolution, and can be complementary to observations in
the C array which will be sensitive to large spatial frequencies. It
can be carried out alongside spectral-line observations at 1.4 GHz in
the continuum parts, or in the X-band or P-band, having advantages of
higher spatial resolution and effectiveness to probe non-thermal
emission respectively. Contemporaneous optical observations and prompt
multiwavelength followup will be useful in elucidating the exact
physical nature of the Galactic transients.

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