Related papers: A flash of polarized optical light points to an as…

Luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) are a growing class of enigmatic energetic transients. They show fast rises and declines, high temperatures throughout their evolution, and non-thermal emission in radio and X-rays. Their power…

We present ZTF18abvkwla (the "Koala"), a fast blue optical transient discovered in the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) One-Day Cadence (1DC) Survey. ZTF18abvkwla has a number of features in common with the groundbreaking transient…

Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs) are a class of extragalactic transients notable for their rapid rise and fade times, blue colour and accompanying luminous X-ray and radio emission. Only a handful have been studied in detail…

A near-infrared (NIR) excess has been discovered in the emission of the representative fast blue optical transient (FBOT): AT 2018cow. It was suggested that this NIR excess could be emitted by the dust surrounding the source and, thus,…

We present the discovery and extensive follow-up of a remarkable fast-evolving optical transient, AT2022aedm, detected by the Asteroid Terrestrial impact Last Alert Survey (ATLAS). AT2022aedm exhibited a rise time of $9\pm1$ days in the…

We present multiwavelength observations and analysis of six luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) discovered in Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey data. We identified these LFBOTs from their fast light-curve evolution…

We report the optical polarization of a gamma ray burst (GRB) afterglow, obtained 203 seconds after the initial burst of gamma rays from GRB 060418, using a ring polarimeter on the robotic Liverpool Telescope. Our robust (2-sigma) upper…

AT2018cow is the most extensively observed and widely studied fast blue optical transient to date; its unique observational properties challenge all existing standard models. In this paper, we model the luminosity evolution of the optical,…

Gamma-ray burst GRB 140430A was detected by the Swift satellite and observed promptly with the imaging polarimeter RINGO3 mounted on the Liverpool Telescope, with observations beginning while the prompt $\gamma$-ray emission was still…

We present simultaneous UBV polarimetric and photometric observations of the pre-main-sequence binary AK Sco, obtained over 12 nights, slightly less than the orbital period of 13.6 days. The polarization is a sum of interstellar and…

An analysis is presented of the optical polarimetric and multicolour photometric ($BVRJ$) behaviour of the blazar PKS 2155$-$304 during an outburst in 2010. This flare develops over roughly 117 days, with a flux doubling time $\tau \sim 11$…

We report the earliest-ever detection of optical polarization from a GRB forward shock (GRB 141220A), measured $129.5-204.3\,$s after the burst using the multi-colour RINGO3 optical polarimeter on the 2-m fully autonomous robotic Liverpool…

Fast Blue Optical Transients (FBOTs) are luminous transients with fast evolving (typically $t_{\rm rise}<12\ \rm days$) light curve and blue color (usually $\rm {-0.2\ >\ g-r\ >\ -0.3}$) that cannot be explained by a supernova-like…

We present an overview of new HST imaging polarimetry of six nearby radio galaxies with optical jets. These observations triple the number of extragalactic jets with subarcsecond-resolution optical polarimetry. We discuss the polarization…

We present the first high resolution polarization map of the ultraviolet emission from the outer jet in M87. The data were obtained by the Faint Object Camera (FOC) on the Hubble Space Telescope. The polarization map has a resolution of 0.2…

Following a BeppoSAX alert (Piro 1999a) and the discovery of the OT at SAAO (Vreeswijk et al. 1999a), we observed GRB 990510 with the FORS instrument on ESO's VLT Unit 1 (`Antu'). The burst is unremarkable in gamma rays, but in optical is…

While scattering of light by atoms and molecules yields large amount of polarization at the B-band of both T- and L-dwarfs, scattering by dust grains in cloudy atmosphere of L-dwarfs gives rise to significant polarization at the far-optical…

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star orbiting a massive black hole is sufficiently close to be tidally ripped apart by the black hole. AT 2022cmc is the first relativistic TDE that was observed (and discovered) as an optically…

Polarization observations of tidal disruption events offer unique insights into the accretion processes around supermassive black holes. Here, we present optical polarization observations of the nearby event AT 2023clx, obtained using the…

Progenitor models for the "luminous" subclass of Fast Blue Optical Transients (LFBOTs; prototype: AT2018cow) are challenged to simultaneously explain all of their observed properties: fast optical rise times < days; peak luminosities >1e44…