DESAlert: Enabling Real-Time Transient Follow-Up with Dark Energy Survey Data
Abstract
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is currently undertaking an observational program imaging of the southern hemisphere sky with unprecedented photometric accuracy. In the process of observing millions of faint stars and galaxies to constrain the parameters of the dark energy equation of state, the DES will obtain pre-discovery images of the regions surrounding an estimated 100 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) over five years. Once GRBs are detected by, e.g., the Swift satellite, the DES data will be extremely useful for follow-up observations by the transient astronomy community. We describe a recently-commissioned suite of software that listens continuously for automated notices of GRB activity, collates useful information from archival DES data, and disseminates relevant data products back to the community in near-real-time. Of particular importance are the opportunities that non-public DES data provide for relative photometry of the optical counterparts of GRBs, as well as for identifying key characteristics (e.g., photometric redshifts) of potential GRB host galaxies. We provide the functional details of the DESAlert software as it presently operates, as well as the data products that it produces, and we show sample results from the application of DESAlert to several previously-detected GRBs.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1504.02996,
title = {DESAlert: Enabling Real-Time Transient Follow-Up with Dark Energy Survey Data},
author = {A. Poci and K. Kuehn and the DES Collaboration and : and T. Abbott and F. B. Abdalla and S. Allam and A. H. Bauer and A. Benoit-Lévy and E. Bertin and D. Brooks and P. J. Brown and E. Buckley-Geer and D. L. Burke and A. Carnero Rosell and M. Carrasco Kind and R. Covarrubias and L. N. da Costa and C. B. D'Andrea and D. L. DePoy and S. Desai and J. P. Dietrich and C. E Cunha and T. F. Eifler and J. Estrada and A. E. Evrard and A. Fausti Neto and D. A. Finley and B. Flaugher and P. Fosalba and J. Frieman and D. Gerdes and D. Gruen and R. A. Gruendl and K. Honscheid and D. James and N. Kuropatkin and O. Lahav and T. S. Li and M. March and J. Marshall and K. W. Merritt and C. J. Miller and R. C. Nichol and B. Nord and R. Ogando and A. A. Plazas and A. K. Romer and A. Roodman and E. S. Rykoff and M. Sako and E. Sanchez and V. Scarpine and M. Schubnell and I. Sevilla and C. Smith and M. Soares-Santos and F. Sobreira and E. Suchyta and M. E. C. Swanson and G. Tarle and J. Thaler and R. C. Thomas and D. Tucker and A. R. Walker and W. Wester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.02996},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
14 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Final version accepted by Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia