Research Division Seminar
Challenges of time-domain astronomy

Abstract

The number of photons received allows radio astronomers to resolve the
Universe on timescales of nanoseconds. This has been demonstrated over
decades by observations of giant pulses from the Crab Pulsar, why more
recently, it has led to the establishment of the  new research field of
Fast Radio Bursts. The latter were initially discovered in archival data but are now
established as a population of radio sources at cosmological distances.
While their origin still remains a mystery, they promise to become powerful
cosmological tools. This talk will briefly review time domain astronomy in
the radio regime, describe some of the latest FRB results, and will also address
the challenges. These range from dealing with large amounts of raw data
(PB to EB) that need to be processed in real-time with machine learning methods,
to delivering reliable triggers for multi-wavelength follow-up at optical and higher
frequencies.