The scientific potential of LOFAR for time-domain astronomy

Abstract

LOFAR is a groundbreaking low-frequency radio telescope currently nearing completion across northern europe. As a software telescope with no moving parts, enormous fields of view and multi-beaming, it has fantastic potential for the exploration of the time-variable universe. In this brief paper I outline LOFAR's capabilities, as well as our plans to use it for a range of transient searches and some crude estimated rates of transient detections.

To be published in the proceedings of IAU symposium 285, New Horizons in Time Domain Astronomy (Eds. E. Griffin, R. Hanisch and R. Seaman)