Detection of Galactic and Extragalactic Millimeter-wavelength Transient Sources with SPT-3G

High angular resolution cosmic microwave background experiments provide a unique opportunity to conduct a survey of time-variable sources at millimeter wavelengths, a population that has primarily been understood through follow-up measurements of detections in other bands. Here we report the first r...

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Published in:The Astrophysical Journal
Main Authors: Guns, S., Foster, A., Daley, C., Rahlin, A., Whitehorn, N., Ade, P. A. R., Ahmed, Z., Anderes, E., Anderson, A. J., Archipley, M., Avva, J. S., Aylor, K., Balkenhol, L., Barry, P. S., Basu Thakur, R., Benabed, K., Bender, A. N., Benson, B. A., Bianchini, F., Bleem, L. E., Bouchet, F. R., Bryant, L., Byrum, K., Carlstrom, J. E., Carter, F. W., Cecil, T. W., Chang, C. L., Chaubal, P., Chen, G., Cho, H.-M., Chou, T.-L., Cliche, J.-F., Crawford, T. M., Cukierman, A., de Haan, T., Denison, E. V., Dibert, K., Ding, J., Dobbs, M. A., Dutcher, D., Everett, W., Feng, C., Ferguson, K. R., Fu, J., Galli, S., Gambrel, A. E., Gardner, R. W., Goeckner-Wald, N., Gualtieri, R., Gupta, N., Guyser, R., Halverson, N. W., Harke-Hosemann, A. H., Harrington, N. L., Henning, J. W., Hilton, G. C., Hivon, E., Holder, G. P., Holzapfel, W. L., Hood, J. C., Howell, D. Andrew, Huang, N., Irwin, K. D., Jeong, O. B., Jonas, M., Jones, A., Khaire, T. S., Knox, L., Kofman, A. M., Korman, M., Kubik, D. L., Kuhlmann, S., Kuo, C.-L., Lee, A. T., Leitch, E. M., Lowitz, A. E., Lu, C., Marrone, D. P., Meyer, S. S., Michalik, D., Millea, M., Montgomery, J., Nadolski, A., Natoli, T., Nguyen, H., Noble, G. I., Novosad, V., Omori, Y., Padin, S., Pan, Z., Paschos, P., Pearson, J., Phadke, K. A., Posada, C. M., Prabhu, K., Quan, W., Reichardt, C. L., Riebel, D., Riedel, B., Rouble, M., Ruhl, J. E., Sayre, J. T., Schiappucci, E., Shirokoff, E., Smecher, G., Sobrin, J. A., Stark, A. A., Stephen, J., Story, K. T., Suzuki, A., Thompson, K. L., Thorne, B., Tucker, C., Umilta, C., Vale, L. R., Vieira, J. D., Wang, G., Wu, W. L. K., Yefremenko, V., Yoon, K. W., Young, M. R., Zhang, L.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: American Astronomical Society 2021
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac06a3
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Summary:High angular resolution cosmic microwave background experiments provide a unique opportunity to conduct a survey of time-variable sources at millimeter wavelengths, a population that has primarily been understood through follow-up measurements of detections in other bands. Here we report the first results of an astronomical transient survey with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) using the SPT-3G camera to observe 1500 deg² of the southern sky. The observations took place from 2020 March to November in three bands centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. This survey yielded the detection of 15 transient events from sources not previously detected by the SPT. The majority are associated with variable stars of different types, expanding the number of such detected flares by more than a factor of two. The stellar flares are unpolarized and bright, in some cases exceeding 1 Jy, and have durations from a few minutes to several hours. Another population of detected events last for 2–3 weeks and appear to be extragalactic in origin. Though data availability at other wavelengths is limited, we find evidence for concurrent optical activity for two of the stellar flares. Future data from SPT-3G and forthcoming instruments will provide real-time detection of millimeter-wave transients on timescales of minutes to months. © 2021. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2021 March 16; revised 2021 May 21; accepted 2021 May 27; published 2021 August 3. The authors thank Anna Ho for helpful comments on a draft version of this paper. We are also grateful to Jeff DeRosa and Johan Booth for providing guidance for South Pole weather balloons. Thanks to Charles Gammie, Leslie Looney, Paul Ricker, Bob Rutledge, and Laura Chomiuk for invaluable early discussions. The South Pole Telescope program is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through grants PLR-1248097 and OPP-1852617, with this analysis and the online transient program supported by grant AST-1716965. Partial support is also provided by the NSF Physics Frontier ...