The Deeper Wider Faster program: chasing the fastest bursts in the Universe

Abstract

We present the Deeper Wider Faster (DWF) program that coordinates more than 30 multi-wavelength and multi-messenger facilities worldwide and in space to detect and study fast transients (millisecond-to-hours duration). DWF has four main components, (1) simultaneous observations, where about 10 major facilities, from radio to gamma-ray, are coordinated to perform deep, wide-field, fast-cadenced observations of the same field at the same time. Radio telescopes search for fast radio bursts while optical imagers and high-energy instruments search for seconds-to-hours timescale transient events, (2) real-time (seconds to minutes) supercomputer data processing and candidate identification, along with real-time (minutes) human inspection of candidates using sophisticated visualisation technology, (3) rapid-response (minutes) follow-up spectroscopy and imaging and conventional ToO observations, and (4) long-term follow up with a global network of 1-4m-class telescopes. The principal goals of DWF are to discover and study counterparts to fast radio bursts and gravitational wave events, along with millisecond-to-hour duration transients at all wavelengths.

arXiv comment4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of the IAU Symposium 339

References in corpus (8)

• Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger
• A bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin
• A Repeating Fast Radio Burst
• FRBCAT: The Fast Radio Burst Catalogue
• Follow up of GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart by Australian-led observing programs
• Mary, a pipeline to aid discovery of optical transients
• Enabling near real-time remote search for fast transient events with lossy data compression
• Collaborative workspaces to accelerate discovery

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Multiwavelength observations of Fast Radio Bursts
• Rapid sorting of radio galaxy morphology using Haralick features
• A Southern-Hemisphere all-sky radio transient monitor for SKA-Low prototype stations
• The Deeper, Wider, Faster Program: Exploring stellar flare activity with deep, fast cadenced DECam imaging via machine learning
• Radio Transients and Variables in the Tenth Deeper, Wider, Faster Observing Run
• An Optical Daytime Astronomy Pathfinder for the Huntsman Telescope
• H.E.S.S. programme searching for VHE gamma rays associated with FRBs
• Coordinating observations among ground and space-based telescopes in the multi-messenger era
• Understanding the human in the design of cyber-human discovery systems for data-driven astronomy