Tools for time domain and multi-messenger astrophysics

Time domain and multi-messenger astrophysics are novel domains of astronomy. Researchers are studying variable and explosive cosmic phenomena (i.e .the time domain part). For this, they exploit the full electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to the highest energy gamma rays. Over the last years additional messengers like high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves have helped to complete our understanding of the most violent phenomena in the universe.

To enable and facilitate observations of time variable, astrophysical sources, new tools and procedures are necessary. New technologies like machine learning and AI is adding new capabilities to professional platforms. At the same time, access to new computing ressources like cloud computing and the increasing prevelance of internet access and mobile phones around the world is enabling the participation of amateur astronomers, citizen scientists and the interested general public. To foster these valuable exchanges, we here provide a list of tools and freely available platforms. They have been developed and are being used by professional astronomers but are open and accessible by everybody. Give it a try and become part of the increasing number of citizen scientists participating in the latest astrophysical discoveries.

Time domain astrophysics discussion forum: forum.astro-colibri.science

Multi-purpose platforms

Astro-COLIBRI: a top level platform summarizing the latest detections of transients phenomena. Provides many links to additional information about each event, an assessement of the observability at custom locations, etc.

Main website: astro-colibri.science

Web interface: astro-colibri.com

Smartphone applications: Android + iOS/iPadOS

Follow-up observations

Many newly detected transient phenomena are not well localized. Dedicated follow-up observations are necessary to localize and study the underlying source(s) in detail. The calculation of optimized observation plans is being provided by tools like:

tilepy: An open source, python based library calculating optimized observation schedules for gravitational waves and gamma-ray bursts detected by Fermi-GBM.

Code: https://github.com/astro-transients/tilepy

Website (incl. public API) : tilepy.com

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gwemopt: An open source, python based library providing tiling patterns of gravitational wave events.

Code: https://github.com/mcoughlin/gwemopt

Alert distribution

General Coordinates Network (GCN): distributes alerts between space- and ground-based observatories, physics experiments, and thousands of astronomers around the world.

Website: https://gcn.nasa.gov

Transient Name Server (TNS): the official IAU mechanism for reporting new astronomical transients such as supernova candidates.

Website: https://www.wis-tns.org

Multi-messenger alerts

Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON): real-time correlation analyses of the high-energy signals across different astronomical messengers

Website: https://www.amon.psu.edu

Citizen science

Unistellar / SETI : The Unistellar Network is a worldwide community of Citizen Astronomers working in partnership with professional astronomers at the SETI Institute. Members use their Unistellar telescope to collect astronomical data.

Website: https://www.unistellar.com/citizen-science

Latest alerts: https://alerts.unistellaroptics.com/transient/events.html

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