Discovering the Most Enigmatic Transient Phenomena in the Time-Domain

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

In astrophysics, observed phenomena with relatively rapid variation and short duration are known as “transients,” as distinguished from more steady objects such as stars and galaxies. Transient astrophysical events have been one of the driving forces behind some of the most interesting discoveries of the past century: black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, neutrinos, and cosmic rays. Newly discovered classes of transients have already provided insights into such topics as gravitational waves, the birth of magnetars, or highly magnetized neutron stars, and the creation of heavy atomic elements through the r-process. A research group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will undertake a project to (1) characterize enigmatic transient events with a new, novel wide-field survey: the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) (2) detail the progenitors and explosions of those “exotic” transients, (3) produce new methods for anomaly detection involving unsupervised and semi-supervised learning with citizen science, and (4) prepare for time-domain discovery with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Citizen-science is central to this project and the researchers will engage participants through the Zooniverse platform, thus continuing to build public engagement with astrophysical transients and the LSST. Given limited spectroscopic time to follow up transient events, the highest returns will come from focusing resources on the rarest astrophysical objects. As we discover ever more transient events from current surveys, identifying exotic events within their terabytes of data requires novel methods. The research group will use observations from the Young Supernova Experiment to identify rare and unusual events with novel anomaly detection techniques. YSE will augment public data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) by providing additional color information and better time-sampling, making it an ideal test for the discovery of exotic transients. The team will deploy their improved anomaly detection methods on archival data from the Pan-STARRS and DES surveys for validation. The work will provide a strong foundation for Rubin operations, and the anomaly detection filter will be deployed on NSF’s NOIRLab ANTARES event broker system, allowing LSST’s time-domain science collaborations to find more of these enigmatic sources. At the end of this research project, the team expects to have characterized individual events as well as the larger population of exotic transients and their physics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.