Observing explosive transients in their infancy with robotic telescope networks

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Astrophysical transients are hugely energetic events in the Universe that evolve on human-reachable timescales of days to years. Their influence in the Universe is vast - producing and releasing much of the elements of the periodic table, as well as forming the most exotic objects we know of as their remnants: black holes and neutron stars. Due to their transient nature, quic reactions in both discovering and studying transients must occur in order to extract the significant scientific yield they offer.The project will define, and automate the link between discovery and characterisation of astrophysical transients. It will exploit discoveries of new transients by the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer facility (GOTO) and perform algorithmic vetting of these sources in a manner most often performed manually, currently, in order to identify those with the most pressing need of further observations and follow-up observations. Once this is in place the automated triggering of nearby facilities, including the Nordic Optical Telescope, the Liverpool Telescope will be performed to obtain multi-colour photometry, and spectroscopy of these discoveries. A key driving factor will be to remove the typically human-induced lags for optical transient study after their discovery, with the aim to obtain detailed information on very young transients. There are a number of very short-lived empirical features in transients that can be highly diagnostic of their nature. For example, early bumps in the light curves of thermonuclear supernovae, which potentially indicate differences in the stellar structure upon explosion, and short-lived, highly ionised emission features in the spectra of core-collapse supernovae, which can provide crucial constraints ont he nature of mass loss in the most massive stars. Although we are beginning to probe these phenomena, their routine study is strongly limited due to a lack of responsiveness and being able to take the requisite data on appropriate time-scales.The project will aim not only to enable these rapid observations, but to exploit them also. The light curves and spectra of individual object of interest will be studied, and a continuous population-scale analysis made of the resultant follow-up to critically assess and improve upon the automated selection criteria. Analysis will be done cheifly on optical and near-infra red photometric and spectroscopic data, venturing to other wavelengths (e.g. Radio, X-ray) if needed for particular objects.