The Decade of Transients S. R. Kulkarni California Institute of Technology Pasadena, USA

Organization of talk  The coming of age of transients  PTF & CSS: Examples of on-going transient program  Crystal ball gazing: Next generation transient facility (facilities)  Role of space-based telescopes

Technology is driving Transients  At optical wavelengths, Moore’s law has enabled wide field and synoptic surveys  Near-IR lagging behind (sensors)  Radio astronomy is undergoing a renaissance, also due to Moore’s law  LOFAR, ASKAP  ATA (new RF technologies)  MeerKAT (new dish technology)

Catalina Sky Survey  60-cm Schmidt telescope (Catalina Mt)  Single CCD  800 square degrees per night  Mt. Lemmon 60-inch telescope  1 square degree mosaic imager  Siding Spring 50-cm Uppsala Schmidt

2008 TC3

Frontier Fields  High Energy Neutrino Astronomy  GW Sources (100 Hz band)  eLIGO (2009), aLIGO (2013)  Ultra-high energy cosmic rays  GZK cutoff (proton-photon pion production)  Transients in the Nova-Supernova Gap

A Novel Two-telescope Approcach Palomar 60-inch Palomar 48-inch

PTF collaboration Caltech, LCOGT, Berkeley, LBL, IPAC, Columbia, Oxford, Weizmann

PTF projects 5 day cadence SNe search (~40%) <1 day cadence transients search (~40%) Orion field (~10%) H  all-sky survey (~10%) PTF Key Projects Transients in nearby galaxies Search for eLIGO/neutrino EM counterpart Thermonuclear SNe Core Collapse SNe Blazars/AGNTidal Disruption Flares H-alpha Sky Survey Orphan GRB afterglow AM CVnCVs Galactic dynamics RR Lyrae Flare starsRotation in clusters Nearby Star Kinematics Eclipsing stars and planets AsteroidsKBOs

Statistics of Core Collapse  Dwarf galaxies:  Over-abundance of IIb  No normal Ic  BL Ic  Ib  Large Galaxies:  Over-abundance of II Arcavi

UV spectroscopy of local Ia Nugent, Ellis, Howell, Sullivan …

UV spectroscopy of local Ia Nugent, Ellis, Howell, Sullivan …

Sorting out mysteries (via large samples) Sullivan, Kasliwal

Swift Observations Kiran ( ) M uv = −23.5 (!) for z = 0.29 UVOT uvw1, uvm2, uvw2XRT Quimby

Luminous Supernovae: New Avenues  Deaths or death throes of very massive stars (but not like those found locally)  Arise in tiny galaxies (likely metal poor)  Long-lived optical/UV emission allows both IGM and ISM to be probed  Fading source offers powerful way to study DLA  Arm-chair astronomy?

Two weeks ago

Just this week

PTF is finding: 1 transient per 20 minutes 1 strong variable per 10 minutes will respond to Fermi/GBM, IceCube,LIGO TOOs

P48 survey telescope P60 classification telescope P200 Spectroscopy Lesson Learnt: An Integrated Approach

The Future

Transient Searches: Several Dimensions  Several dimensions  Field of View, Cadence  Band, Sensitivity  Focused programs (TOO, fixed targets, …)  “One kippah does not fit all”  This is the assumption being made by PS-1 and by LSST  Wrong assumption => new opportunity for nimble players

A possible vision  Vision: 10,000 square degrees per night  Equip P48 with 0.5 Gigapixel sensor  Conventional CCD or CMOS  Reduce dead time to 20 s  Treat the Asteroid problem as an opportunity  A 1-m telescope for Asteroids only  Rapid photometric typing and low resolution spectroscopy as a part of the project  A 2-m photometry telescope  A 2-m Low Resolution Spectrograph telescope

Space support  A dedicated satellite would provide UV and blue observations for interesting transients  All young transients in nearby galaxies  Luminous supernovae  [Low sky background, no moon problem, no weather problem]  15-cm UV/Blue telescope would be adequate

Topics for Discussion

In the coming years  Likely LSST will be 2020 (given NSF funding profile)  Dedicated facilities such as PTF or PTF2 can skim the cream  aLIGO and VIRGO will reach full operational status by 2014  EM localization is the great second prize in this field  Large FOV cm radio surveys will begin 2013 (ASKAP, ATA)  PTF or PTF2 can provide the perfect complementarity to these surveys

Discussion  PTF-2 is one suggestion.  Other ideas?  Importance of UV/Blue space observations  Supporting  Providing critical diagnostic value [IDENTIFY]