Detection of Galactic and Extragalactic Millimeter-Wavelength Transient Sources with SPT-3G
Abstract
High-angular-resolution cosmic microwave background experiments provide a unique opportunity to conduct a survey of time-variable sources at millimeter wavelengths, a population which has primarily been understood through follow-up measurements of detections in other bands. Here we report the first results of an astronomical transient survey with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) using the SPT-3G camera to observe 1500 square degrees of the southern sky. The observations took place from March to November 2020 in three bands centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. This survey yielded the detection of fifteen transient events from sources not previously detected by the SPT. The majority are associated with variable stars of different types, expanding the number of such detected flares by more than a factor of two. The stellar flares are unpolarized and bright, in some cases exceeding 1 Jy, and have durations from a few minutes to several hours. Another population of detected events last for 2--3 weeks and appear to be extragalactic in origin. Though data availability at other wavelengths is limited, we find evidence for concurrent optical activity for two of the stellar flares. Future data from SPT-3G and forthcoming instruments will provide real-time detection of millimeter-wave transients on timescales of minutes to months.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.06166,
title = {Detection of Galactic and Extragalactic Millimeter-Wavelength Transient Sources with SPT-3G},
author = {S. Guns and A. Foster and C. Daley and A. Rahlin and N. Whitehorn and P. A. R. Ade and Z. Ahmed and E. Anderes and A. J. Anderson and M. Archipley and J. S. Avva and K. Aylor and L. Balkenhol and P. S. Barry and R. Basu Thakur and K. Benabed and A. N. Bender and B. A. Benson and F. Bianchini and L. E. Bleem and F. R. Bouchet and L. Bryant and K. Byrum and J. E. Carlstrom and F. W. Carter and T. W. Cecil and C. L. Chang and P. Chaubal and G. Chen and H. -M. Cho and T. -L. Chou and J. -F. Cliche and T. M. Crawford and A. Cukierman and T. de Haan and E. V. Denison and K. Dibert and J. Ding and M. A. Dobbs and D. Dutcher and W. Everett and C. Feng and K. R. Ferguson and J. Fu and S. Galli and A. E. Gambrel and R. W. Gardner and N. Goeckner-Wald and R. Gualtieri and N. Gupta and R. Guyser and N. W. Halverson and A. H. Harke-Hosemann and N. L. Harrington and J. W. Henning and G. C. Hilton and E. Hivon and G. P. Holder and W. L. Holzapfel and J. C. Hood and D. Howe and N. Huang and K. D. Irwin and O. B. Jeong and M. Jonas and A. Jones and T. S. Khaire and L. Knox and A. M. Kofman and M. Korman and D. L. Kubik and S. Kuhlmann and C. -L. Kuo and A. T. Lee and E. M. Leitch and A. E. Lowitz and C. Lu and D. P. Marrone and S. S. Meyer and D. Michalik and M. Millea and J. Montgomery and A. Nadolski and T. Natoli and H. Nguyen and G. I. Noble and V. Novosad and Y. Omori and S. Padin and Z. Pan and P. Paschos and J. Pearson and K. A. Phadke and C. M. Posada and K. Prabhu and W. Quan and C. L. Reichardt and D. Riebel and B. Riedel and M. Rouble and J. E. Ruhl and J. T. Sayre and E. Schiappucci and E. Shirokoff and G. Smecher and J. A. Sobrin and A. A. Stark and J. Stephen and K. T. Story and A. Suzuki and K. L. Thompson and B. Thorne and C. Tucker and C. Umilta and L. R. Vale and J. D. Vieira and G. Wang and W. L. K. Wu and V. Yefremenko and K. W. Yoon and M. R. Young and L. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.06166},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
14 pages, 9 figures; accepted to ApJ 5/27