INSPIRE Track 1: Arizona-NOAO Temporal Analysis and Response to Events System (ANTARES)

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the Special Projects program of the Division of Astronomical Sciences and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities, both in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and by the Information Technology Research and Information Integration and Informatics programs in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. This project will construct a software infrastructure for filtering and annotating alerts generated by astronomical time-domain surveys, where an alert is a change in an astronomical source when compared with a reference image. Current and future surveys are capable of producing enormous numbers of such alerts: in particular, the planned Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project could produce a million or more every single night for a decade. Within this veritable flood will be a small number of rare and unusual sources with short lifetimes that must be recognized in real time, or else the opportunity for thorough study will be lost. This research will meet that need: the system will include a core flow that quickly annotates alerts with already known details, creating a useful database in its very first pass, followed by a method to derive broad characteristic features that can be used to filter out and divert those events not in need of rapid follow-up. Advanced, more computationally intensive processing can be applied to those that pass the filters, including multiple paths that allow users to select for their particular interests. The final product for this prototype is those alerts that are the most unusual. The system is designed to be flexible, so no alerts are lost and the stream can be tapped by external users at any point for their own processing. Use of the Arizona Machine Experimentation Lab allows for model construction and testing, and for creation of novel, perhaps more efficient, filtering processes. Throughout, decisions are completely driven by astronomical expertise. The study of known but rare objects will transform fields ranging from stellar evolution to growth of active galactic nuclei to the fundamental structure of the Universe, while the discovery and characterization of previously unknown objects could create entirely new fields. Although the prototype will focus on the rarest of objects, ultimately the built-in flexibility and community-generated filtering processes will enable finding items of specific interest to any user. In addition, a system that can take alerts, aggregate ancillary information, and filter to identify specific cases, will be of general use in many fields, from epidemiology to network protection to homeland security and beyond, wherever rapid analysis of new events properly associated with existing information is critical.