Observing explosive transients in their infancy with robotic telescope networks

天体物理瞬变是宇宙中能量巨大的事件，它以人类可以到达的时间尺度从几天到几年进化。它们在宇宙中的影响是巨大的--产生并释放出元素周期表中的大部分元素，以及形成我们所知的最奇异的物体，即它们的残余物：黑洞和中子星。由于它们的瞬变性质，在发现和研究瞬变的过程中必须发生常规反应，以提取它们提供的重要科学成果。该项目将定义并自动化天体物理瞬变的发现和表征之间的联系。它将利用引力波光学瞬变观测仪设备(GOTO)发现的新瞬变，并以目前最常用的人工方式对这些源进行算法审查，以确定哪些最迫切需要进一步观测和后续观测。一旦这一点到位，自动触发附近的设施，包括北欧光学望远镜，利物浦望远镜将被执行，以获得这些发现的多色光度测量和光谱。一个关键的驱动因素将是在发现光学瞬变研究后消除通常由人引起的滞后，目的是获得关于非常年轻的瞬变的详细信息。在瞬变中有许多非常短暂的经验性特征，可以高度诊断它们的性质。例如，热核超新星光曲线的早期凸起可能表明爆炸时恒星结构的不同，以及核心塌缩超新星光谱中的短暂、高度电离发射特征，这可能对最大质量恒星的质量损失性质提供关键限制。尽管我们正开始探索这些现象，但由于缺乏响应性和无法在适当的时间尺度上获取必要的数据，他们的常规研究受到了极大的限制。该项目的目标不仅是使这些快速观察成为可能，而且还将利用它们。将研究单个感兴趣物体的光曲线和光谱，并对所产生的后续行动进行连续的总体规模分析，以严格评估和改进自动选择标准。将廉价地对光学和近红外光度和光谱数据进行分析，如果需要特定物体，可以冒险使用其他波长(例如无线电、X射线)。

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.